KP  Cross Country
by Commander Argus
Summary: Kim and Ron set off on a road trip to the east coast with their kids in tow. [Complete]
1. Chapter 1

**_Cross Country_ – Part I**

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Takes place several years after the events in **Heart of the Fury**

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Kim Stoppable stepped out the front door of her townhouse and stared. The monstrosity sitting in their drive represented one thing to her…

…defeat.

She sat down on the stoop, propping her chin on her upturned palm. At least it was a new model, with all the accoutrements expected from a high-end, late model such as she was staring at. There was a full satellite hookup with both onboard and remote navigation capabilities. The communications array could keep them in touch with virtually the whole planet if they wished to. The seats were not only wrapped in leather softer than any Italian made glove, but boasted the latest in computer controlled custom comfort appliances. Once the computer was made aware of her biometrics, it would instantly conform to her personal preferences, without so much as touching a button.

The cabin had separate climate zones, with heat or air conditioning delivered to any seat, be it in the front or the back The front passenger seat could be tilted back almost all the way without interfering with anyone sitting in the back. Everything about it screamed comfort and luxury.

She still hated it.

Sitting in their front drive was the one type of vehicle she never wanted to own.

An SUV.

Of course, her feelings toward that class of vehicles really didn't apply. It didn't burn copious amounts of gasoline, nor was it noisy. It was designed to ride as if they weren't even in a vehicle. Her father's beloved Jaguars weren't as smooth riding as the new _Glissade_ parked in front of the home she had lived in for almost five years.

It still stood for the kind of environmental waste she always stood against.

Sure, in high-tech looking chrome letters it said 'hybrid' on the rear hatch. That had become a badge of honor among people like her. That in itself wasn't what put her mind at ease so much as the fact the gasoline powered engine that normally charged the electric motors in such a vehicle had been replaced with a special cold-fusion fuel cell. The 'truck' (as her husband Ron called it) would not need refueling for close to a century.

She remained tweaked at it simply because it was a large sports-utility-vehicle. Most people that saw it wouldn't get close enough to see the fake "hybrid" plate. They would simply assume it was just another gas imbibing monster that got only a dozen or so miles from a six dollar gallon of fuel. Her fear was that the moment she climbed into it, a photo of her would be flashed instantly around the globe, with thousands of irate fellow environmentalists clamoring for her virtual head.

It would have been so much better to fly. It wasn't like they couldn't afford the tickets. Ron had parlayed the small fortune he received from the trust fund his father had set up for him into a something much larger. He still worked as the executive chef at his four-year-old restaurant, but that was sort of a personal indulgence.

She never once thought she would be in her position by the age of twenty-seven. She was well on her way to receiving her doctorate, though, in all her years, she had yet to even think about what she was going to do. For a while, after completing her undergraduate work, she thought she would return to the hero business, though in a much more advisory role. Three months after her wedding, she learned that would not be in the cards for a while. Then, just as thing were shaping up in the Team Possible department again, she found out that she was once again pregnant.

At least this time it was planned. She and Ron had actually been trying for a little over a year. It seemed so easy the first time. In fact, GJ, or Eugene James came along as a bit of a surprise. They wanted to wait a few years before they started having kids, but one mission kept them away from Earth itself for a while, and during that time they were together, with her birth control pills sitting in a drawer, at home.

She rested her hands on her seven-months pregnant belly for a moment, thinking about the little girl growing inside her, as well as her son.

She wouldn't have taken anything in the world for GJ, though sometimes it seemed a little odd to call him that, as if he was named after Global Justice, instead of his two grandfathers, Gene Stoppable and James Possible.

The screaming in the house announced that her four-year old son had come down from his upstairs room and was chasing his aunt and foster-sister around the house, most likely with his specially modified super-soaker gun. It did little good to tell him not to use a water gun in the house, or to take it away. He always found it.

The door burst open and two eight-year old girls came piling out of the house, flying over the steps and landing in a dead run. Wet steaks on their clothes told the tale. GJ was on the prowl with his favorite weapon.

His 'aunt' was really much more like an older sister to him. Ron's parents spent almost eighteen years trying to have another child, with success coming at just about the last possible moment. Catherine Jean, or CJ as they called her, was every bit her older brother's sister. She had the same corn colored hair, the same big ears sticking out from her head and big dark freckles decorating her face. Despite those familial oddities, she was actually an attractive little girl. Since Kim had known Ron quite well at that age, she knew that she looked just like him, right down to the dark red T-shirts she favored. The only real difference in the little tom-boy was her long, shaggy hair. The same cowlicks plagued her as they had her brother. The running joke between the two of them was that she should have been named VeRONica, with the emphasis on the 'Ron" part.

The other little girl was actually no blood relation to any of them, though she had spent the greater part of her short life with the young parents instead of her natural forebears. Papers had been signed making the Stoppables legal guardians of Amethyst Lipsky when her parents could not be around. Considering they were many thousands of light-years away from Earth most of the time, the responsibility often fell to them, to the point they really started thinking of the girl as their own.

Amethyst was almost surreally pretty. She had her father's glittering blue eyes and dark brown hair, but everything else came from her mother. She was four inches shorted than CJ and was clearly going to be a quite petite young woman some day, unless some strange growth spurt were to occur. Her hair was already down to her waist and not a day went by that Kim didn't think she looked just like a miniature version of her mother.

Sherry "Shego" Lipsky had been given a second chance. On Earth, despite leaving her old ways behind, she would always be a wanted criminal. A sort of truce had been called when her daughter was born, but it was likely it would not last. On her new world, both her and her husband, Drew Lipsky, the former Doctor Drakken, were considered heroes. It was a change in their lives they could not pass up.

The only problem was that their new home, the planet Arkonia, was just too dangerous a place to raise a then-three-year-old. It was probably one of the toughest decisions the young mother had ever had to make, but at least she had one person she could trust to take care of her. It was awfully strange that the two of them had only a few years earlier been mortal enemies, but the fact remained that Kim was glad to take in the little girl.

That is until they learned Amethyst was not only capable of mimicking her mother's glow powers, but also had the ability to transport herself and others clear across the galaxy in the blink of an eye. They quickly realized Ammie, as she was known by almost everyone, was teleporting to her mother. It was a hard lesson to learn when she ended up in the middle of a battle and nearly saw her parents killed. From then on, she would only visit when she was able to contact her first.

A third shape came charging out the door, bearing the air-powered water gun like it was an assault rifle. GJ was a straight cross between his parents. In shape and build he looked just like his uncles Jim and Tim when they were that old, with the same ragged, spiky hair. Only that hair was much, much lighter than theirs was, being a shade of strawberry blonde tinged with red. He had his father's brown eyes and round face, though his ears were significantly smaller.

While nobody could say the charging little boy was graceful at the moment, he did not share his father's innate clumsiness. For a four-year-old, he moved with power and confidence, and not the tiniest little bit of fear. The scrapes and bruises on his arms and legs were testament to his adventurous spirit.

GJ may have been fast, but his mother was even faster. One moment he was charging past her on the stoop, ready to blast his playmates with is aquatic assault rifle, the next he was empty-handed. He skidded to a halt and glared at his mother for a moment.

"Gimme that back! It's mine!" He stomped one foot, as if that would fracture the sidewalk in front of him. It was at times like those Kim was so glad his fathers Mystical Monkey Power couldn't be passed down to his children.

"No, Eugene." Just like her parents, Kim was much more likely to use his full name rather than his initials. It was Ron's doing calling his sister and his son that. "We're going to be leaving in a little bit, and I don't want the three of you all sweaty and dirty. We're going to be in the car for a very long time.

"Well, they started it. Ammie tried to kiss me!"

"Did not." The tiny eight-year old said, emerging from her hiding place.

"Did too! You were trying to give me your icky girl germs."

"I don't get germs." That much was true. Ammie hadn't been sick a day in her life. No earaches, no colic, not even a cold. That had been left to CJ, though she was never sick very long, especially when her roommate was around. Nobody seemed to get sick when she was near, making the adults wonder if she inherited more of her biological father's powers than they first suspected.

"Don't care. Ammie, you don't kiss Eugene. Eugene, the water gun stays home." She pulled the stopper, letting the huge tank on top drain out onto the grass of their small front yard. "Now, inside with all of you. I want you to take care of business before we leave, because Daddy's not stopping until we get to the hotel."

The three children trotted into the house. At least they knew what she meant, even if she sometimes had to explain it to Ron. Of course, they would very likely have to stop several times anyhow. The Glissade might not need gas, but with her expanding midsection pressing on her bladder, there was no way she was going to last the roughly one-thousand miles before they reached their planned stay at the halfway point.

She still would have thought it was a better idea to fly, but Ron was somehow enamored with the thought of cross-country road trips. Right after they turned eighteen, they had set out on one alone. He also kept making the argument that pregnant women shouldn't fly, but she still had two months to go and wasn't in danger of giving birth on the plane. He won the battle once he went to go pick up the new SUV.

One day Kim was going to discover where Wade came up with all the materials for the gadgets they provided for them. Obviously he managed somehow to turn a great many of his inventions into income, but she never really had a handle on how much. Ron even said from time to time that he suspected the oil companies were paying him millions every year just to keep cheap energy technology like the power cells of their cars off the market.

All through the years he had always provided them with high-tech gadgets to serve on their missions. It really didn't dawn on her until her later teens that some of the technology was actually worth millions, like the super-suits they used to wear. A his and hers set still hung in the back of their massive walk-in closet, but they hadn't been put on in over a year. She made a mental note to check the charge meter on them some time when they got back.

Would she even be able to put it on with her expanding midsection?

Ron appeared at the front door, trying desperately to handle as much of their luggage in one trip as he possibly could. If this was an actual mission, he could have his gear pared down to what would fit in their small backpacks, yet on a 'normal' trip, he never quite got the hang of only carrying what they needed. She was certain their closet had literally been cleaned out.

"Ronnie, let me help you with that."

"No way, KP. No heavy lifting. Doctor's orders." He never stopped calling her that, even after they got married. It went without saying that KS didn't quite roll off the tongue the same way.

She put her hands on her hips. "You know good and well Mom was exaggerating. I'm not having any complications this time around and there's nothing there that's over the limit."

"Okay, carry this." He handed her a canvas bag. Curious, she looked through it, pulling out a battered silver device. The finish had worn off most of the edges and it was scratched all over its plastic body, but the small screen set in the upper half of the face looked brand new. If only the whole outer surface was made of that sterner stuff.

"I thought we talked about this." She held his old Kimmunicator up, waving it like it was some contraband found in the children's things.

"Aw, come on, Kim. What if…"

"What if? Ron, you know we don't do that any more. Joss is perfectly capable of running Team Possible while we're gone. Besides, you're the one who keeps after me about not overexerting myself while I'm in this…_delicate condition_, as you so chauvinistically put it."

He took the old unit and stuffed it in the cargo pocket opposite his second oldest friend. "Think of it like this, KP. I'm going prepared. You know as well as I do any time we go somewhere without one of those, or our equipment belts, something bad goes down. It's our lot in life. Some people are just born to get in trouble."

"Or trouble comes looking for us. Ron, I'm not even bringing a link-phone. If somebody wants to get a hold of us, they're going to have to do it through the communications system on that truck thing of yours."

"Well, I'm taking it, but it's turned off. Besides, I'm sure Wade's tracking us, if he needs us, he'll know how to reach us."

Kim laughed softly. "Just make sure it is. It's going to be enough fun driving cross-country with three kids. I don't want him talking us into taking Midori too."

"Aw, Wade and Yori's kid is cute."

"Yes, but she's two, already talks like a six-year-old, can take apart almost anything and her mother is already training her to be a ninja. I'm so not dealing with that, on top of our kids."

"We'll be ready to go in a few minutes." He shoved the last of their luggage into the back of the SUV. "Then we'll be outta here and won't have to worry about it." He looked around. "I could have sworn I heard the kids a minute ago."

Kim struggled to her feet, having a hard time despite her protests otherwise. "Eugene James Stoppable! Catherine Jean Stoppable! Amethyst Nell Lipsky!" Kim once was forced to read _Dune_ and realized one particular part actually worked; _The Voice_. Or course, it could be just the simple fact she used their full names. In short order all three reappeared.

"In the truck, now!" She pointed at the vehicle. Wordlessly, all three obeyed. Well, except for GJ.

"I don wanna ride in the boos'er seat. I wanna ride with Dad!"

Ron picked his son up and put him in the seat, snapping the straps shut. "Not till you get bigger, squirt." He felt bad for the boy, but every single state they were crossing required children his age to be in them, whether they were the sons of internationally known heroes or not.

"Uncle Ron, I want to sit with CJ." Ammie pleaded. She was herself only just barely big enough she didn't have to ride in one herself.

"Sorry, Ammie. The seat's made to fit in the middle, unless you two want to sit in the back row."

"So not." Kim said, climbing into her seat. "They're sitting right in the middle row where I can keep an eye on them." She smiled at the girls, knowing full well what kind of mischief they were capable of. If Ammie were alone, she tended to be quiet and reserved, but CJ had a tendency to bring out the worst in her sometimes. Together, they were like Kim's younger brothers had been at that age, with the added fun of the tiny brunette's powers.

Ron climbed into the driver's seat last. While he was half a head taller than Kim, he still wasn't an extremely tall man, so he looked lost in the spacious cabin. She took his hand and gave it a good squeeze as he put the big SUV into gear.

"Okay, let's go get Felix and Monique married." He drove out onto the street, heading for the highway.

"Hey, he's touching me!" CJ whined as they made the last turn before the expressway.

"More than two thousand mile, Baby, and we haven't even hit the city limits yet." Kim chided.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

a/n – This story represents a big milestone for me. I've now hit a mark I didn't think possible when I started writing here at FF. One million words!

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Kim Possible and all related characters © Disney


	2. Chapter 2

_**Cross Country – Part II**_

On occasion, Ron sometimes reverted to his old, random ways. If work was done for the day and all his responsibilities were taken care of, he would quite easily park himself in the family room, pull out any one of several game consoles and burn up the better part of a day sitting and playing video games, whether they were up-to-the-minute versions of the most popular titles, or classics, like Zombie Mayhem II (which he still considered the best of the series, even if the graphics were almost twelve years out of date. Even at twenty-seven, Ron could still be counted on to be full of child-like wonder.

He still looked much the same as he had for most of his life. His hair was still a bit on the shaggy side, with loose locks of it hanging across his forehead. The back was tapered neatly, though a little cowlick still stood right smack in the middle of the transition. The only time he ever successfully got it to lay down was his Senior Prom, when he'd deliberately grown his hair a bit longer than usual so it would slick back. Even at his wedding he hadn't been able to do anything with the tuft, though it really didn't matter, since it was covered with a yarmulke for most of the day anyway.

Ron and Kim had been fighting the 'battle of the blade' almost constantly since about the first time she got pregnant. They had come back from an extended mission without access to toiletries, at roughly the same part of Ron's life when his beard really started coming in fast and heavy. The day they got him, Kim pulled out the clippers and Ron's electric razor and marched him into the bathroom to take the ratty looking beard off.

Her eyes nearly crossed when he came out sometime later with a neatly trimmed goatee and mustache. She tried everything in her arsenal to get him to finish shaving the rest of it off, but to no avail. She swore she wouldn't kiss him, that she would cut off other benefits, even tried the Puppy Dog Pout on him, but he wouldn't budge.

Three days later, when Kim found out she was pregnant, the beard came off.

Sometimes he would grow it back, though it never got as thick as it had been at first. Then Kim would wear him down and he'd shave it right back off. One time she came very close to using the electric clippers on him while he slept, but backed off with the thing in her hands, ready to hit the switch. Oddly enough, the next morning he emerged from the bathroom clean shaven once more.

She had a notion that might have been when her daughter was conceived. It was hard to tell, considering the fact they had remained…very affectionate throughout their marriage, but it was nice to be able to point to some special occasion and say that was it.

Ron never quite seemed to change all that much, really. He still dressed a comfortably as possible (though Kim wouldn't let him out of the house with his ratty old jerseys any more) and carried himself as if he didn't care who was looking at him at any given moment. It wasn't so much that he was lazy…well, he still could be at times…but that he wasn't going to be going through life uptight about things.

As Kim sank down in the leather seat, she looked him up and down. About the only difference she could see in him was his glasses and the thick gold wedding ring he had on his left hand. Its twin rested on her hand, a large but simple gold ring, the kind you could see from across the room that announce 'I'm married!' It was so large she had stopped wearing her other rings for a while, until one day she spotted them in her jewelry box and decided to wear them all. There was the emerald ring he had given her on her seventeenth birthday (with matching earrings she still wore almost constantly) and a smaller engagement ring he had given her when he first proposed right after they both turned eighteen. She tried wearing her old Middleton High School class ring for a bit, but decided that was a little too much. It sat in a little tray of its own in her large jewelry chest, right beside Ron's much larger class ring. He had worn his perhaps two weeks total since he got it, mostly right after it was delivered and once more at their Senior Prom, when Kim thought it appropriate he put it back on. The rest of the time it hung from her necklace (being far too large for her to even think of wearing on any of her fingers. It even rattled around on her thumb.)

A lot of people who spoke to Ron wouldn't come away thinking he was the brightest bulb in the pack sometimes, but when it came to things he liked, or like to do, he did them well. That morning, before they started packing the SUV, he made everyone breakfast. If there was one thing he knew, it was food, and not only did he know how to make even the simplest fare delicious, he knew what certain foods could do. With being cooped up in a vehicle, even one as large as the Glissade, with three hyperactive kids, he knew what he had to do.

Normally, when the kids hit the kitchen in the morning, they would simply start grabbing bowls of super-sweet cereal. GJ had inherited his mother's love of Captain Crunch, while the girls both liked anything that would turn their milk chocolate (or cocoa moo, as Ammie liked to call it.) That was great when they were just going to spend the summer days playing, or heading off to school as they would be doing in a couple weeks. Ron knew better than to let that happen.

GJ fussed, wanting his cereal, but ended up eating his fried eggs and bacon as well. CJ had a lean piece of pan-fried steak since she had decided for herself to start keeping kosher. The lack of highly-processed sugar in their breakfast had the desired effect. By the time they cleared the Tri-City area, they had all settled down. Then, as they reached the outskirts of Denver, all three of them had drifted off to sleep.

"Let no one doubt your mad food skills." Kim said, easing her seat back slightly to partake in the blessed silence.

"Almost blew it. CJ was up before six and was all the way up on the kitchen counter trying to get his cereal down when I got up to start making breakfast."

Kim just shook her head. "I swear, he's just like his uncles. Dad used to say they were monkeys."

Ron did a little mock shudder. "Me producing a monkey boy…irony much?"

"He's just…adventurous. He's not afraid of anything."

"Well, fear and paranoia have served me well in the past. I'm just worried he's going to learn some hard lessons. If he fell…"

"He probably would have run to us screaming that Catherine or Amethyst did it." She said resolutely. Of course, if she were the one who found him climbing the cabinets, she would likely have turned his backside the same color as her hair. Kim didn't like to use corporal punishment, but sometimes the firm application of an open hand was the only thing that could get through his thick Stoppable skull.

He also seemed to be tough as nails. One of the big no-nos in the younger Stoppable's home was that everyone wore their helmets if the so much as sat on a bike. GJ didn't think he needed one, because he didn't crash – ever. (Training wheels? What are training wheels?) He would tear around the neighborhood on his little 16 inch bike, trying all the stunts other kids two and three times his age were doing. Ron ended up having a custom sixteen inch dirt jumping bike custom made for him at the local bike shop. Most of the bikes built in that size were toys and wouldn't survive they day under the boy.

One day, though, Kim heard a horrible crash in the back yard as she did her school work on the kitchen table. Rushing outside, she saw the damaged bike sitting beside his makeshift ramp. She also saw the blood. GJ was lying in Amethyst's lap, crying softly. His helmet was broken in two pieces and there was blood on the ramp and on the bike, but he was somehow, miraculously unhurt.

"You sure you don't need help navigating?" Kim asked as Ron scanned for the off ramp.

"KP, please. I was born in Denver. I think I know my way around here pretty well."

She crossed her arms, leaning back and smiling at him. "Ronnie, you moved to Middleton when you were barely four. I don't think this is the same place twenty three years later.

"Hah, oh ye of little faith. Right here's the ramp for east Seventy. North Carolina here we come."

"First we have to get to Evansville, Illinois, baby. You're still not out of the woods yet." She gave his leg a little rub. The bet was still on. Even though they had a pretty straight shot cross-country once they cleared Denver, there were still plenty of places to get lost, such as the interchange with Interstate Sixty Four about halfway, or the place where they planned to find a room for the night, if they managed to get that far in one day of driving. The bet was that Ron was going to get them hopelessly lost and have to either use the computer navigation system in the SUV, or call Wade to talk them back to the main road. Several items were on the table, including a rather extensive backrub, though Kim had little doubt she could get him to do that anyway once they got the kids settled down that evening. One of the great joys of motherhood, especially being as normally petite as she was, was a very sore lower back much of the time.

After lunch, Kim was going to take the wheel, giving Ron the chance to catch forty winks himself, or try to control the three kids, depending on how many carbs they managed to ingest at the mid-day meal. Kim would have been all about packing a lunch so they could stay on the road. That would mean they could keep on trucking practically all day, giving them some extra time to stretch their legs and unwind once they reached Evansville. They kids would also want to hit the hotel swimming pool, no matter what the weather was like when they got there, or what the hour was.

Unfortunately, she was vetoed by a vote of four to one. If Ron had agreed with her, marshal law would have been declared and it would have been sandwiches, potato chips and juice boxes while under way. The rest of them would hear none of it. They were on a family outing, and that meant finding a fun place to eat along the way. Kim had horrible visions of pulling off the interstate and the only restaurant in sight was a J.P. Bearymore's. Just thinking about that burnt pizza smell made her want to open the door and chuck her breakfast on the blacktop. Her pregnancy had been gong smoothly for the most part, but just like the first time the morning sickness had lingered longer than expected. Even that far along, she would get queasy if she even smelled food she did not like.

Kim's eyes snapped back open. She was having a very nice dream that involved Ron where she wasn't monstrously pregnant and three screaming kids were safely in the care of GJ's grandparents. It was the smell that awakened her, not anything Ron had done behind the wheel. He was softly humming along with the old Oh Boyz track the built-in MP3 player was running. The kids were still quiet, and that was all that mattered.

Ron might not have been attuned to that particular odor as she was. It was extremely faint, much more so than it had been when she was a little girl, but to her it was unmistakable…

…nail polish!

Glancing at the chronometer in the dash, Kim realized she had actually been sound asleep for several hours. If things were not getting out of hand in the back of the SUV, then she would soon give Ron the signal that a rest stop was necessary. Her coffee that morning had been, out of necessity, decaf, but the fluid content of that ersatz brew was already taking its toll.

Twisting around, she looked in the back seats. Despite her admonishments, CJ and Amethyst had abandoned he middle row, climbing into the back seats where they could have a little privacy. She smiled to herself, knowing that at eight-and-a-half and nearly nine their idea of what required privacy was much more innocent than it would be in as short as three or four more years. Amethyst may have tested as being as intelligent as a twelve-year old or even a teen, but emotionally she was still just a little girl.

Catherine Jean, on the other hand, while doing pretty well in school herself, was pretty much just like her big brother. She was reasonably smart, but had to be pushed to reach her full potential. Perhaps that was one of the reasons they spent so much time caring for the little girl, since the elder Stoppables knew she would settle for no less.

The problem was that CJ was an odd combination of a girly-girl and a tomboy. She liked pretty things and sometimes played with dolls, but was just at home flailing around in the mud with her nephew.

While she was looking back at them, GJ opened his eyes for a moment, before scrunching them closed as he yawned and stretched. That's when Kim saw his hands…

…his nails were painted alternating purple and pink. The girls had been busy before absconding to the back seats. There was only one thing that would make boys want their fingernails painted, and that was if a cute fifteen year-old cheerleader was doing the painting. Those boys also were in the midst of puberty and well past the 'girls are icky cootie monsters' phase (Big Mike was WAAAYYYY past it, though he was scared of Rufus.)

She counted down in her head. _Three, two, one_…

"Gah! Get it off, GET IT OFF! MOMMIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE!"

"Whoa, what's going on? Somebody spill something, what's wrong?" Ron barked, trying to keep his attention on the road. Kim made a mental note to get a high-caffeine citrus soda out of the cooler for him. His eyes had been open, but he apparently had been lulled into senselessness by the long, non-descript interstate highway.

Rufus appeared on Ron's shoulder, at full attention. He was even more protective of the kids than he was of Ron. "Rufus, why don't you go back there and keep and eye on the girls."

He gave him a little salute, then skittered to the back seat to observe the near pre-teen plotting going on back there while Kim fished around in her purse, producing a bottle of nail-polish remover and the "Mommy" equivalent of duct tape – a pack of tissues. Unhooking her restraints, she carefully climbed into the middle seat. The giggling from the back seat signaled the two knew exactly why their guardian was wriggling her enlarged form between the bucket captain's chairs toward the whining four-year-old.

"When I get my hands on the two of you…Arrgh!" Kim growled as she tried wiping the color off her son's fingers. She was having a tough time of it, considering he was even less willing to have her scrubbing the nails with the foul smelling liquid.

"Pew! Stinks, Mommy!" She tried holding onto his hand so she could get it out of his cuticles. His cries only served to make the girls laugh all that much harder.

"Don't make me stop this thing." Ron warned from the driver's seat. Even though she was quite angry with the two, she had to smile at that. It had to be a rite of passage for any father to say that while driving. Things were usually much easier in Kim's smaller, though aging PT Cruiser. She would have rather been in it herself, though it would have been quite cramped for the five of them over the next several days. Then too, it had seen its share of activities, some of which she was not about to bring up in the company of the children. In their early twenties, not all of their fun was had in the small apartment they leased before the townhouse was built.

Finally wiping the last of it off that she could without a good sink to wash the vestiges away, Kim turned around, looking over the back of the seat at the two girls. They were sitting up on the bench seat, Ron's Kimmunicator glowing between them. With a slight growl, she picked it up. "What are you doing with this?"

"Ammie was showing me how to download games." CJ said, reaching for the silver handheld.

"This is not a toy." Kim scolded. "It's not like the one Wade put together for you, it can go places you don't have any business going."

"It's okay, Kim." A voice from the little device said.

"Wade?"

A wide, smiling face appeared on the screen. "I pretty much figured when they started downloading games from the Mouse Ears Channel website it would be them, so I've been monitoring so they wouldn't get into any mischief. If you want, I can set them up with some really cool games. I know Ammie likes to play Tetris for hours on in."

"Please and thank you." She smiled at her old friend and passed the handheld back to the girls. She shook her head as she turned around and settled into the seat beside her son. He was already busy with the remote for the pull-down screen, flipping through the dozens of children's movies in the SUV's computer. Moments later, the _Jabber Mittens_ appeared, singing one of their interminable "La-la-la" songs. He discovered them when he wasn't even two, watching them whenever he got the chance. Kim thought she might someday get used to it, but felt for her former foes when they literally got stuck in the program. She wondered how Drakken survived when his step-daughter discovered them at that age as well. Oh well, it could be worse. That purple dino-thingy might still be popular with the kids.

"Aw, come on man!" Ron hollered, looking in the rear-view mirror.

"What is it, honey?"

"That jerk in the semi behind us has been tailgating me for the last twenty miles. Dude! It's an eight-lane interstate, you can go around me." He waved his arms, forgetting the tinted windows would keep them from being visible from behind. "Go around! Around!"

"Ron, just amp down. I need to stop anyway. Find us a rest area."

"I thought we all took care of our business before we left the house."

"Hello! Who are you, Gene Stoppable? That was four hours ago, and if I've got to go, you know the kids do." Ron's father was famous for his non-stop driving. If it weren't for the fact his old Camry had a fairly small tank and its aging engine was craving more and more gasoline, he would never stop. Kim recalled, not too fondly, a trip she had taken with him to Ron's grandmother's back when they were eighteen. She made the terrible mistake of drinking half a pot of coffee that morning, then riding the bumpy road to her cabin, followed in turn by having to meet and greet his hyper-critical great aunts before she could dash inside to the bathroom.

At least he knew he had better stop. Even before she was pregnant she threatened to hang her backside out the back hatch if he didn't find a place to pull over. Somehow he sensed she wasn't kidding.

"Can you hold out till lunch?" he looked at her in the mirror. One glance at her eyes told the story. "Guess not."

Crossing her legs as best she could, she twisted around, looking through the back glass. Sure enough, there was the big rig. It was one of the big ones, with a large sleeper and a fairly long nose. Huge tanks on the sides pointed to it being a long-haul truck, meant to cover great distances with its load. From her vantage point, she couldn't tell what it was actually hauling.

"He is kinda close. Ron, better pull off at the next exit. My weirdar is going off, just a little."

"M, kay. Hey, there's a Bueno Nacho! Total score!"

"Anything, as long as its got a clean ladies room." She took one more glance behind her as they shifted lanes.

If her weirdar had been going off before, it pegged as the truck changed lanes right along with them.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Kim Possible and all related characters © Disney


	3. Chapter 3

_**Cross Country – Part III**_

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Kim craned her neck so she could follow the truck in the right rearview mirror as their SUV sped down the ramp of the interchange. For a few heartbeats she held her breath, half expecting the rig to race right up onto their bumper, smashing into them. She finally let that breath out when she realized it wasn't getting any closer. Still the mere fact it was still right behind her was bothering her much more than she cared to admit. Even being off the bad guy's collective radars for some years, there were still some people out there who would want some harm to come to her.

In the past, the possibility they were being followed wouldn't have upset her quite as much. Even without most of the funky gadgets she employed during her teen hero days, she knew she could be a force to be reckoned with. Having Ron by her side, she would feel almost invulnerable. Even a few months earlier she would have actually welcomed a little bit of real action. Though her lifestyle as a jet-setting teen adventurer was years behind her, she actually found herself craving some real excitement for a change.

That wasn't the case that morning, not with her son, her sister-in-law and her foster child with her, not to mention her as yet unborn daughter. There was simply too much at stake. Even considering Amethyst could mimic her mother's powers to some extent, they would be in danger. So far the child had very little training in using her purple glow as an offensive weapon and, if she had anything to say in the matter, she wouldn't, at least until she was old enough to make that kind of decision for herself.

The off-ramp ended at a traffic light, opening onto a four-lane highway peppered with gas stations and fast food places. The welcome sombrero shaped roof was visible about a quarter mile away from them. Kim almost bit her lip when the traffic light caught them, making her almost wish Ron's driving hadn't improved and he would take the chance of running the yellow.

Glancing back nervously she could see the ubiquitous silhouette of a large busted woman in the center of the truck's grille. The driver was still hidden behind tinted windows, the late-morning sun glinting off them just so she couldn't see anything but the reflection of the sun in the glass.

_It's just some guy in a work shirt, waiting for the light to change_ she kept telling herself as they waited their own turn at the light. The Semi stopped some ten feet behind them, then crept forward a couple inches with a jerk. Despite the cool air pouring from the vents of the SUV, Kim could feel sweat beading on her forehead. If it were not for her condition…

…then what? How many times did this sort of thing happen to motorists. Big Rigs were the lifeblood of the economy. It was the only truly efficient way of moving goods around the nation. Trains couldn't do it, ships couldn't do it. It was trucks, moving loads one at a time in forty to fifty foot trailers, sometimes even pulling two.

From their vantage point at the bottom of the ramp she could finally make out that the truck was pulling a tanker, probably delivering gasoline to one of the many stations scattered near the interstate. She forced herself to relax, thinking it was only coincidence the driver had to pull off at the same exit she had picked.

Her heart nearly jumped out her throat when the rig suddenly jerked a couple feet closer to her. Then she realized they were moving once more. The light had finally changed, letting them onto the crossroads. The truck, slowly made to follow them, taking a little more time to get up to speed than the four powerful electric motors of their own vehicle did. The final test came when Ron turned into the parking lot at Bueno Nacho.

"Ron, park us around back."

"Something wrong KP?"

"Dunno, just do it."

He pulled into a space that was probably normally only used by the staff, if they ever followed the policy of leaving the prime spaces for the customers. He was about to reach for the door handle when Kim laid a hand on his shoulder from her seat behind him.

Slowly the truck reached the entrance of the little Tex-Mex eatery. Time seemed to crawl by as first the cab, then the long, silver tank slid by. Kim finally let out a huge breath as it passed them by, heading on up the road and disappearing around a bend.

"What's wrong, Kim?" Ron undid his seatbelt and turned to look at his wife.

"I…I think it's just nerves…and hormones and my back teeth are floating." She responded nervously. "Okay, girls, who has to go to the lady's room with me?"

"No thanks. Just want me a Naco!" Ammie thrust both fists in the air, mimicking a touchdown signal.

"Ron, you take care of the kids." She hastily climbed out the side door, sprinting toward the building.

"Okay, Ammie wants a Naco. GJ, CJ, what do you guys want?" He asked, pretty much knowing what was coming.

"Wanna lil' nino meal with a toy." His son shouted, still not quite able to properly pronounce niño.

"They don't have much that's Kosher, do they, Ron?" CJ asked, probably for the hundredth time.

"Ceeg, I'm as Jewish as you are, and I've eaten this stuff most of my life. It's not going to kill you."

"Rabbi says that deciding to live by the laws of our culture is a personal decision, and I don't think there is a single thing in there I can eat."

He rolled his eyes. At just a few weeks shy of turning nine, his little sister could already speak Hebrew better than him and could quote scriptures constantly. Other than that, she really didn't seem to be very religious, so he suspected it was a sort of childhood rebellion thing, though he couldn't say anything about it since, in a way, she was right and he wasn't supposed to be eating those things himself. "How about a taco salad with no meat or cheese on it?"

"Whatever." She said flatly, sitting back in her seat and folding her arms over her chest.

Ron almost said something. He utterly hated the word, but was in too good a mood otherwise to get into correcting his little sister during what amounted to a family vacation.

"Daddy, how come we aren't 'sposed to eat meat with cheese?" GJ asked.

"Because…wait a minute, you don't eat Kosher." His son went to both temple services and church services with them. At some point in his life he would be ready to decide which faith he was going to follow, his mother's or his father's, but at four, he was still completely enamored with all the same greasy foods Ron craved.

"That's what CJ told me." He said, mimicking his mother's pout.

"You want a lil' niños meal or not?"

"Duh." He crossed his arms, copying his aunt's gesture.

"Can't we go inside? I want to see Ned."

"Uh, GJ, Ned doesn't work at this one."

"But I want a Choco-Naco!" his pout turned into a scowl. "Ned always gives me a Choco-Naco with it."

Ron just shook his head. Sure, the long-time manager of the restaurant closest to where they lived liked to slip the boy the sugary treat behind his back, but it really didn't matter except for the fact he didn't want the child hopped up on the sweets. It was going to be bad enough in the enclosed space of the SUV once they all had the spicy foods in them. Ned wasn't getting away with anything since part of the deal Ron's father made with the corporation many years ago was lifetime free food for him and his family, a benefit that survived his leaving their employ several years earlier. It also seemed a little funny that he created the ice-cream and cinnamon crisp filled desert treat himself during his tenure as the Tri-City district manager.

Kim opened the door and climbed back into the front seat. "Not quite sure I want to eat here now." She said with a slight growl. "I so wish you were still a DM. You'd eat them alive for the way the place looks."

"That bad?"

"Ferociously bad. Do you have any idea how hard it is to hover like this." She put a hand on her belly. "It's like they don't even care."

"I don't even know whose district this is any more. Come on, there's a Burger Prince up the road." He restarted the motors and got ready to pull out.

"I don't want a burger." Ammie protested. "I wanted a Naco!"

"And I want my salad." CJ chimed in.

Not wanting to be left out, GJ started whining about his meal, though he was mostly concerned about not getting the toy that came with the Lil' Niño's meal. Pretty soon, the cacophony of three whining kids was too much for the two adults. Ron put his forehead down on the steering wheel, while Kim turned around and shot them all the "Mommy Glare." The girls instantly shut up, but GJ just started wailing.

"Okay, we'll hit the drive through." Ron gave in, backing the SUV out of its space.

"No, we won't." Kim said resolutely.

"But KP…"

"No buts. We're not going to teach little Gene that whining is going to get him his way. Besides, I don't want to eat anything from this place and I'm ferociously hungry. Just go down to the burger place and get them all something and they can like it."

"Okay, you win. Just don't look back there."

"Why not?" She asked, a little crossly. Kim never got her answer. Slightly tweaked that her husband was about to give in, as well as her ordeal in the lady's room, she simply turned and looked.

It was known far and wide that the women of the Possible family had a certain power. None were quite as well versed in the uses of that power as Kim and her Mom. It came as a surprise, then when her son spontaneously started using it himself, proving that males were capable of it as well.

Ron had tried the Puppy Dog Pout on occasions himself, though with less-than-impressive results. GJ, however, could fire off one with at least as much power as Kim, possibly rivaling the one true master of the pout, Anne Credible Possible. His chocolate brown eyes got as big as saucers and his bottom lip stuck out, all while sinking his little head down between his shoulders and cocking his head to one side.

"Gene, please believe me. That place back there is nasty. Remember what we told you about germs?"

"Don't care. I want my chim-rio."

Kim tried looking away, but found she couldn't. A horn blared outside, wanting past their large vehicle, which was still sitting in the middle of the lot. That was enough to break the spell, even for a moment. "I said no, Gene. We'll get you a Chimirito when we get home. Ned keeps his store sparkling clean. These people obviously don't care about their little girl's room, so that means they don't care about the food."

"I WANT MY CHIM-RIO!" He screamed.

Kim finally broke eye contact with him. "Pull back into the space, Ron."

"But?" He looked at his wife, then put it in gear and followed her instructions.

She unbuckled her seatbelt and turned around. "That's quite enough of that young man. I know what's best for you, even if you don't."

"Oh no." Ron said under his breath. Twelve years later and she still hadn't broken herself from saying that.

"I said we're not eating here and that is final."

"Then why did you have me park?" Ron asked.

"Just going to take care of something first." Kim opened a panel in the middle of the dash and used a small scroll-wheel to select an item on the small screen located there. Finding what she wanted, she pressed the button just below the wheel.

The outside of the SUV started changing. The nearly-black green finish of the vehicle shimmered slightly, changing to a bright metallic silver. It was a capability that her PT Cruiser had. Years ago they rescued a scientist who had built a self-driving SUV named S.A.D.I. Wade had incorporated several of 'her' features in the new vehicle, one of which was the ability to change the color of its exterior, either to a number of pre-sets, or it could be adjusted manually.

"I'm still a little worried about that truck, so if he sees a silver Glissade pull out, maybe he won't think it's us."

Ron nodded. "Not that many of these around these parts, but sounds like a badical idea." He put it in gear once more and pulled out, ignoring the whines and pouts coming from the center seats. He gave his son one more glance in the mirror before they started down the road to the burger joint.

He didn't mention the fact he really wanted a Naco himself, despite Kim's judgment of the place's hygiene.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Kim sat down on the bed, letting her shoulders slump. At any moment she expected one of the kids to start pounding on their door, even though they were supposed to be going to sleep. GJ at least had been easy to deal with. They all sat in the main area of their hotel room watching a movie on the Mouse Ears channel and he was asleep long before the end. The way the girls were dragging, maybe they were asleep as well. Sleep seemed like such a blessed thing, even though she had dozed her way through most of their day-long drive. Riding in a car, even one as comfortable as the new SUV, was tiring in its own right. Yet sleep would have to wait for other things.

Her second pregnancy was playing out pretty much just like the first. In a way that scared her, considering the tough time she had the final month with little Gene. She was supposed to get a c-section, but the labor took them all by surprise and she ended up giving birth naturally. Granted, it lasted some eight grueling hours, but that was only the grand finale of a month of problems she hadn't been expecting. She spent the last three weeks in bed almost constantly, with her Mom hanging over her to make certain she followed her obstetrician's orders.

That wasn't what she was thinking of as she reclined on the edge of the bed. For perhaps the first month after she found out she was pregnant the last time, she couldn't get enough of Ron. She would come home from classes and drag him either upstairs or into the den. Sometimes they didn't even get that far if Amethyst's mother was visiting and they had the large townhouse to themselves.

Then, as if somebody flipped a switch, her libido crashed. Ron never complained, but she was sure it hurt him to go from feast to famine like that overnight. Then about five and a half months along, her drive came back gangbusters. Following a particularly nasty nightmare, she took him to the bedroom and even called in sick for him the next day though it wasn't all spent in his arms considering she still had to take care of Amethyst, who was not quite four at the time. Up until her health started declining at the end, they kept up a pretty substantial pace.

Then it was almost two months after GJ was born before she was comfortable being with him again.

Hoping the kids really were settled down, she slipped out of her simple travel clothes and into a sheer nightie while Ron finished up in the bathroom. A smile crept over her lips when he came out. He was still in his boxers, but he was otherwise ready, having just shaved. He knew better than to try growing his Vandyke back with her hormones primed to go off at any time.

She lay back on the bed, smiling softly at him as he crossed the room. Sometimes she felt like she was as big as a whale, but when she was lying in the bed, waiting for her man, she felt like pure woman…most of the time.

"Do you think I'm still sexy?" She asked, pulling herself up to the pillows.

Ron lay down beside her, tracing circles on her belly. "What do you mean still? You've never stopped being sexy."

Kim rolled partially onto her side. "I'm being serious here, Ron. I know I've gained a little more weight this time around, and it was ferociously hard losing it after Gene came." He started to open his mouth, but she held a single finger up in the air. "If you say there's more of me to love, then I'm going to show you just how much kung fu I can still do like this."

"Wasn't gonna say that." He pouted. "But it's true. You're as sexy to me now as you were the first time you kissed me."

"Liar." She said with a smile, taking the hand that was lovingly stroking her midsection.

"So not the drama, KP. Look at your Mom. She had the three of you and she's always been skinny as a rail. She's skinnier than you when you're not preggers. I swear, Mom P doesn't have much of a backside."

Kim raised an eyebrow. "Are you saying I've got a big butt or something?" She squeezed his hand just a little harder than their traditional 'hand-hug.'

"No, you've just got much more muscular legs." He shifted positions slightly and put his free hand on the aforementioned body part.

"Good save." She leaned over toward him and kissed him gently on the lips.

Ron rolled back onto his back, keeping his hand clasped with hers. "Think we're gonna call it quits after Jean Anne comes?"

She rolled onto her back, looking at the ceiling. "I don't know, Ronnie. We're just twenty-seven. We've got a lot of life ahead of us to be making that kind of decision yet."

"Yeah, but we've effectively got three kids already. I've got a hard enough time telling people CJ is my sister and not our daughter. One guy even got after her for calling me by my name instead of 'Dad.'"

"You're kidding me."

"Nope. Strange little family we've got here. All three of them call us something different."

She kept staring at the stucco ceiling of the hotel room. "Think we're doing the right thing letting Amethyst call us Aunt and Uncle?"

Ron just shrugged. "Probably for the best, especially since we don't want her growing up thinking we're her real parents." He remembered quite clearly when the old woman took them aside and explained to them that it was critically important, no matter how close they were to the child, she must never forget who her parents really were, even though one of them was technically her step-father. Still, they really did think of her as their own child. "We better get some sleep. We've got a lot of ground to cover tomorrow."

A little wicked smile crossed Kim's rounded face. "You know what it takes for me to get a good night's sleep, don't you?"

He clicked out the light. "One dose of the Stoppable Deep Sleep potion, coming right up."

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

The rig pulled to a stop in the parking lot of the cheap motor court accross from the clean, new chain hotel across the highway. The driver nodded to himself as he watched the lights go off in one particular room that matched the notes he clutched in his large hand. Satisfied, he climbed out of the cab, grinning.

Tomorrow, it would begin.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Kim Possible and all related characters © Disney


	4. Chapter 4

**_Cross Country_: Chapter 4**

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two pairs of eyes snapped open only moments after Kim closed the door. Even in the dim light coming from the open bathroom door it was easy to see just how bright blue one or those sets of eyes were.

"Are you sure about this?" Amethyst whispered.

"Shhhhh." CJ hopped out of the bed the two girls were sharing and tiptoed over to the wall.

The smaller, very slightly younger girl slipped out of the bed as well, mimicking her best friend and roommate's stealth, putting her own ear against the wall.

"Uncle Ron is going to turn both of us over his knee if he catches us."

"Not if Kim's around. She doesn't believe in spanking."

"No, her punishments are worse. I'd rather be spanked by Uncle Ron than grounded by Aunt Kim."

"Won't matter. If they catch us it's prolly going to be both."

Amethyst wrinkled her button nose. If it weren't for the limits placed by their guardians, CJ would be on a computer almost every waking minute of her life chatting with her online friends, to the point she would sometimes speak in net-speak instead of proper English. One word she disliked in particular was prolly, whether it was spoken or written.

Satisfied with something Amethyst couldn't detect, CJ made her way back across the room. They weren't being quiet so much because of Kim and Ron, but because of the youngster sleeping soundly in the other bed.

Very few people believed her when she said the little boy was actually her nephew and not her brother, especially since the two of them had practically been raised together. Not long after GJ was born, something happened to CJ's father. As she got older, she learned it had to do with his heart, which never had been good, but since her brother and his wife were already taking care of a girl her age, they offered to take her in until he could get better. By the time he did recover enough to take care of her again, she had started school and it was decided since they only lived about ten minutes away she would still live with them full time so she wouldn't have to change elementary schools. Over time, her relationship with her parents had become much more like grandparents, especially since they were so much older than most parents of kids her age. For all intents and purposes, Kim and Ron were her parents, and legal documents had been drawn up making them co-guardians of her. The only difference was the fact she called them by their first names, as was proper for a brother and sister-in-law.

What nobody figured on was the effect being four years and nine months older than her nephew would have on her. Legal and biological definitions aside, GJ was more like a brother than Ron was. That being the case, she was no longer the baby, but the older sister, starting at precisely the age when she could understand things like jealousy when not only one, but two sets of grandparents doted over the new addition to their strange little mixed family.

Take a little girl who was both a tomboy and a little princess, throw in a dash of sibling rivalry and what you got was a little royal stinker.

Alone, Amethyst was the exact opposite. She was highly intelligent and intensely curious, but a very quiet child. Just like CJ, she would spend every second she was allowed on the computer, but instead of constantly IM-ing her friends, she spent most of her time learning everything she could on a wide variety of topics. Of special interest to her was astronomy, partly because her mother and step-father lived on another planet, but mostly because she was beginning to learn how her powers actually worked.

She had the ability to open portals, or lenses as the Arkonians called them. Some of the adepts of that distant planet could use what appeared to be magic stones to open a lens, but she needed no such device. The drawbacks of the power were that she had to know precisely where she was going. Not only did she open a portal near herself, but she opened one at her destination. When she was very small she transported herself from Kim's parent's house to a spaceship traveling to Arkonia. It worked that time because she could sense her mother on that craft and used her like a homing beacon. If she didn't have an exact destination, the power simply did not work. The second problem with the power was one of minimum distance. She simply could not transport herself from one point on the planet to another, it had to be much further than that. If she wanted to go from, say, the motel room back to her bedroom in Middleton, she would first have to go to a safe spot on a distant planet, then transport back again. It only appeared that she could teleport over small distances since it really only took a few seconds to complete.

The problem was her lack of safe intermediate points. Basically, so far she had only found a nice hidden spot in the Master's Palace on Arkonia she could blink in and out of. Either that, or home in on her mother. She had learned the hard way that was not always the wisest course.

She could also hurl bolts of energy like her mother did, though with considerably less power. Nobody knew if that was a function of her age, or just a differential caused by her other powers. There was also the fact her 'glow' powers were purple, like her uncle Mervin/Mego, though she most definitely could not shrink like he could. Sometimes she wondered if she got her name for that reason. It was that, or the fact the little purple stones with that name were her official birthstone.

Amethyst wasn't a perfect little angel, however. She took after her mother in many ways, including a short temper. Several boys in her class the year before learned very quickly that the waif-like girl was not one to be picked on. There were several occasions when either Kim or Ron were called to the school because she had blackened an eye. Fortunately, she only relied on her fists instead of using her powers, though it might have been possible that her speed and strength were actually related to that.

A loud snort brought the girls' attention back to the matter at hand. GJ rolled over in his bed, balling the covers up over him. They froze in place, worried that he would wake up and start squealing, alerting his parents in the adjacent room. Amethyst especially did not want to disturb them. Being very intellectually advanced for her age, she already knew a lot about the 'birds and the bees,' having accidentally interrupted both her parents and her guardians on several occasions. Ron was normally quite laid back, but that sort of thing had the tendency to make Kim quite angry, and when she got angry, her husband did too. The last thing she wanted was for either one of them to come through the door joining the two rooms and discover what they were about.

CJ inclined her head, motioning for her friend to follow. Amethyst was a little hesitant, worried that the boy was actually awake. She calmed slightly once he started snoring. Both of them had to stifle their giggles; GJ was truly his mother's son – both of them were prone to loud snoring when they were deeply asleep. What was even funnier was that Kim was utterly in denial about it, even when somebody managed to record her doing it. Ammie had the hardest time keeping quiet, remembering the stories Kim told about her Aunt Bonnie keeping her awake by snoring all night at cheer camp one year.

Even though it was a double, the room was quite nice. If they were doing any more than spending one night, they would have unpacked, using the plain, but well-made furniture. Instead, they had simply piled their luggage on the table and counter, unpacking only their pajamas for the night. The suit-bags with their dresses and GJ's little shorts-suit was left in the SUV, since they wouldn't need it until the wedding they were going to several days later. CJ grabbed a nylon duffle bag and motioned for Amethyst to follow her. She carried it into the bathroom and shut the door quietly before turning on the light.

"We're going to get in so much trouble for this." Ammie said, eyeing the purple suitcase dubiously. Even though the Stoppables were quite well-off financially, they had a tendency to hang onto old things. The bag belonged to Kim when she was in high-school, though it had now been relegated to carrying GJ's clothes.

"Nobody's going to know any better." CJ explained, unzipping it slowly so it wouldn't make any noise.

"Okay." Ammie whispered dubiously. She held her hands out in front of her. Amethyst knew she didn't really have to do that. Her powers were completely controlled by her mind, though sometimes she would even go so far as to say some fake magic words when she did it, just to make it seem more like she was working some kind of magic than employing a power that science had yet to completely quantify. Somehow, though, the hand gestures helped her concentrate, especially when she was trying to be sneaky about it.

If she opened a lens all at once, there would be a popping and crackling sound as energy flared in the room. There was also a singular loud pop as the distortion effect displaced the air around it. Instead, she started small, creating a lens only a couple inches across. At first it was just a shimmering disk of light that was actually kind of hard to see against all the white tile of the bathroom.

With extreme care, she made the disk grow until it was about two feet across. It gave off a bluish light and was partially transparent. In that form she could communicate with a person on the other end of the portal. Sometimes she was able to contact her mother that way, but because of a growing resentment due to feelings of abandonment, she no longer did so as often as she had before. Fortunately, there was nobody on the other end to witness the communication lens effect.

Extending her power further, the disk darkened slightly, changing in appearance from a pool of light into something more coherent, until it looked like a pool of mercury floating about two feet over the floor. In that form, she could physically transport herself, other, or objects to a distant location. The lens she created wasn't large enough for a person, but it would work for what the two girls had in mind.

Grinning wickedly, CJ dug into her nephew's suitcase.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kim scowled as she stood at the counter in the kids' room. She was already in a bad mood when she woke up that morning, and things were already starting to go downhill from there. She did get a good night's sleep, but her back was stiff when she woke up. In addition to that, her hormones had flipped the other way around, making her crankier than usual. Knowing that was the cause, she did her best to keep it to herself. Intellectually, she knew nobody, especially Ron, had done anything wrong, and it wouldn't be fair to them for her to act that way.

She wished she could have a huge cup of strong, black coffee instead of that pathetic decaf she was forced to drink. It wasn't so much the flavor of the drink she craved, but the heady pick-me-up of the caffeine in it. Oddly enough, she was also craving the one and only beer she could stand, that dark, rich Irish beer with foam so thick you could float a bottle cap on it. Unfortunately, both of those were completely out of the question in her condition. The fact she could have neither was adding to the tweak.

Growling slightly, she unzipped the main compartment of the purple bag once more, digging past the shorts and t-shirts inside. Realizing she wasn't finding what she was looking for there, she opened the side pockets and looked there.

"Ron?"

A blonde mop of unruly hair popped out of the bathroom door, where he was giving his son a bath. The girls had already taken their baths and were waiting patiently at the table. It didn't help Kim's mood that both of them were already begging to go swimming at the hotel pool, though they were supposed to be on the road long before it would open for the day. The concept of just how many miles they needed to go that day simply did not register with them.

"What's up, KP?"

"Honey, you packed for GJ, didn't you?"

"Well, yeah. Not like I'm going to help the girls pack, if you know what I mean."

"Then why didn't you pack him any underwear?"

"What do ya mean? Of course I packed 'em. I made sure to pack way more than he would need."

Kim picked up the suitcase and carried it to the bathroom, holding it open. "Does it look like there's any underwear in here? Baby, you of all people should know that no male Stoppable should ever go commando."

Ron put the rag down and dried his hands on a towel. "Let me see that." He proceeded to search the bag just as Kim had just done. "Huh. I don't get it. I remember grabbing most of his drawer full." He turned back to his son, who was busy splashing water onto his reddish-blonde hair. "Don't mess with anything, GJ. I'll be right back." He carried the bag out and put it on the sink counter.

Muttering to himself, Ron went back into their room and put on his cargo shorts before heading out the door. A few minutes later he came back in. "I don't see them in any of the bags. I'm sure I packed them with his regular clothes, I swear."

Kim pulled her son out of the tub and started drying him off, while he struggled mightily, not liking having either of his parents bathe him. He was a big boy and knew how to do so himself! "Ron, it's as simple as they're not there. We're just going to have to stop and find him some. Go back down to the SUV and check the navigation system, see if there's a _Bullseye_ store nearby. There has to be one, they're supposed to be all over the place."

"We passed a _Smarty Mart_…"

Kim shook her head emphatically. "We are so not going into one of those places if we can help it. If there's a _Smarty Mart_ here, there's bound to be a _Bullseye_ somewhere close by."

"KP, I thought you got past this. Both stores carry the same brands, and _Smarty Mart's_ cheaper."

"I don't care. It's not like we're going to go broke buying a couple packs of tidy-whities for Little Gene."

Ron tapped his wrist where his watch normally would be. "It's probably a quarter after six. Bullseye stores tend to open at eight. You sure you want to wait around until then? We've got more than thirteen hours in the truck ahead of us if we're going to make it to Durham tonight."

"Fine, you and GJ can go in the Smarty Mart if the other place is going to open that late. We've still got to get breakfast and if I say we're going to stop for another night, then we're going to stop for another night. That's the whole reason we gave ourselves and extra travel day if we needed it."

Kim pulled a pair of shorts out and handed them to her son, who glared back at her, holding them as if they were covered in something yucky. "Where's my unda-wear?"

"Looks like Daddy forgot to pack it for you, sweetie."

"But you said I can't ever wear anything but my swimmin' trucks without unda-wear."

Kim smiled, casting another glance at her husband. "This is a special occasion. Just be sure you button them up tight. You don't want to lose them."

Rolling his eyes, Ron headed for the door. "Look, I'll just drive over there right now and pick up some. Can you handle getting the kids ready?"

Kim pulled a shirt over GJ's head. "Oh, the 'I can do anything' motto still applies."

"Kay, be right back."

She led her son out to the bed so she could strap his sandals back on. She eyed the girls suspiciously as they giggled over at the table.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ron was still muttering to himself as he climbed up into his truck. Smarty Mart never bothered Kim when she was little. Then it was just another store her parents sometimes took her to. It wasn't until about the time they started Junior High that she suddenly turned her nose up at the place. Fashion became critically important to her, something he just couldn't understand. Even when they took Frugal Lucre down the first time some twelve years earlier she couldn't stand wearing pants she bought purely to wear back home, even though the only visible difference was they were slightly darker blue (periwinkle, Kim would correct him, not blue) and they didn't have an embroidered Club Banana logo on the back pocket. Like anybody but him was supposed to be closely examining her back pocket.

Scratch that. He wasn't supposed to be doing that then himself. That was more than a year before they realized they actually had much stronger feelings for each other than just being best friends. Still, he was a guy and Kim was an incredibly gorgeous girl and her derrière was one of the best looking parts of her, especially when viewed from be…

He stopped himself as he pulled out of the parking lot. Somehow, even after being married over five years and having been together more than a decade as a couple, thinking of her that way during their 'just friends' time seemed very slightly sick and wrong. It was as if that Kim and the one who married him almost seven years later were two completely different people. Of course, they really weren't, but it still felt like he was overstepping his bounds whenever he considered the possibility of them dating earlier than they started.

Her snobbery concerning the discount retailers was just plain unfathomable to him. The two stores carried almost the same thing, though Smarty Mart was cheaper and had a better selection. They were also open twenty-four/seven, while the Bullseye stores mostly opened from eight in the morning to ten at night. There was also the fact there were only about half as many of the number two discount store as his personal favorite, but the fact remained it would take an act of congress to get her into one outside of an official Team Possible mission.

The Evansville Smarty Mart was a carbon copy of just about every store he had ever been in. That was another thing that made his life easy. The children's clothing section was always in the same place, cutting down on searching time. Bullseye stores liked to experiment with their layout. To him going into those stores was like going to Chihuahua Taco instead of Bueno Nacho. It wasn't just sick and wrong, it was wrongsick.

Just to be on the safe side, he grabbed three packs. For half a moment he considered getting his son a pack of boxer shorts, but for some strange reason Kim thought that was something that should wait until the boy was actually older. Until such time as she pronounced him ready, he was going to wear plain white briefs. Maybe it was the fact there was a particular reason he wore boxers himself, and had since he was about ten, that she thought along those lines. He hovered over the selection for a moment, then decided it wasn't worth a battle. He knew she was just on the verge of being set off that morning. She was the same way when she was pregnant with GJ.

By the time he got to the front of the store, he recalled another reason Kim hated the place. Since it was a super-center, there were over thirty cash registers at the front, and, as usual, only one of them was open.

Maybe they could be forgiven, considering it was only around six-thirty in the morning, but it seemed that at any given hour of the day, there would only be a couple registers open, no matter how busy the store was. The worst of it that particular morning, though, was the fact the register was an express lane, with a much smaller counter, and at least half of the people in line had full buggies. Getting in the end of the line, he pondered the possibility of finding the manager in charge and asking him to open more lanes.

He kept checking his watch. The girl at the checkout seemed to be half-asleep herself. Shift change was likely only half an hour off and she had probably been there most of the night. As it was, she was slow. Very slow. Slow enough her shift might end before half the line was dealt with, slowing things down even further.

Ron wanted to be on the road. They should have been able to check out in about ten minutes once GJ was dressed and they could hit the drive-thru at the Bueno Nacho for some breakfast Nacos and be on their way. Just like his father, he wanted to make good time, getting to the hotel in Durham at a reasonable hour. If they were too late getting on the road, there was the possibility (no, probability) that Kim would simply point to an off-ramp and call the day's travel over, setting them behind schedule. There were thing to accomplish, like spending a day with Felix proving just who had become better at the latest version of _Zombie Mayhem_.

Fifteen minutes slowly ticked by. He was finally understanding Kim's frustration with the place. He had three items, three identical items and he could pay with his check-card faster than he could count out cash. All they had to do was open one more register and he would be gone.

Almost an eternity later, he put the packs down on the counter, just behind a woman with a whole buggy full of groceries. He rolled his eyes upwards, thinking that particular woman would have been better served hitting the sporting goods section instead of the food. Either that, or the clothing section. Some people simply should not be allowed to wear spandex.

While he was waiting for the woman to write out an old-fashioned check, his cell-phone went off in his pocket, playing the first few bars of _Could It Be_, meaning it was Kim calling him.

"You're kidding…no, I didn't hear a thing…Ammie did it? Oh, come on…I can believe CJ, but Ammie. Okay, I'm on my way back…don't kill them…yet."

As he made his way back to the children's section, he pondered exactly what he was getting into with another girl on the way.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kim Possible and all related characters © Disney


	5. Chapter 5

**_Cross Country_: Chapter 5**

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The ride out of Evansville that morning was quiet…very quiet. CJ had her arms crossed, staring out the window while Ammie sat on the other side of GJ's booster seat, sobbing every so often. GJ was angry as well, fully realizing he was the victim of the girls' prank, yet sharing equally in part of their punishment.

Kim sipped from her rapidly cooling cup of decaffeinated coffee, wishing it was at least twice as strong and the plain, normal Columbian blend she was accustomed to. In front of her, on the dash, were the remote to the SUV's DVD player and Ron's old Kimmunicator. There would be no television that morning, perhaps for that day. That's what had her son so irritable. That, and the fact he hadn't slept well in the strange bed and was forced to change clothes again when Ammie retrieved his underwear from wherever it was she sent it. It didn't matter his briefs had been on another planet, what mattered is he was dragged back into the bathroom and made to put on a clean pair.

The air of crankiness was almost palpable in the vehicle. Kim was already slightly hormonal, even before the kids got started up. The girls were upset that the punishment didn't fit the crime, well, CJ was. Ammie was genuinely sorry, even though her roommate kept insisting there was no harm, so no foul.

Ron should have been in a better mood. Of all of them, he could enjoy a good prank. Unfortunately, that put them behind schedule with his aborted trip to Smarty Mart, and being his father's son, there was nothing more important than making good time on the road. What's worse it took three stops to find something his sister would actually eat for breakfast.

The girls were also grumpy because they had been banned from the back seat. Kim wanted them where she could see them. That meant being separated by GJ's booster seat, a prospect none of the three children relished.

"Ron, I think we might want to take the extra day anyhow. Maybe give the kids some time to play in a pool or something."

"If we're careful with lunch and supper, we should be able to get to Durham around eleven or so. That'll give us a full day to unwind before the wedding."

"Some marinating time would be spankin', but sitting this long in the SUV, it's killing my butt."

"Then play with the controls on your seat."

"Not what I meant, baby. I just think if we're not aiming to go the whole remaining distance in one day, we could have a really nice sit-down dinner, then some real quality family time before hitting the rack." She leaned a little closer to him. "That means some more quality Mommy and Daddy time as well. You know what's going to happen before long. Besides, once we get there, you know Moni is going to want to spend some time with me before the rehearsal and dinner. It'll be a whole lot better if the kids aren't all irritable."

"Why don't we wait and see how far we've gone by lunch." He glanced back at the kids in the rearview mirror. "What are we going to do about GJ? It's not fair he's being punished right along with the girls."

Kim rolled her eyes. "You really want to spend the next four hundred miles constantly listening to the _Jabber Mittens_ or that horrible Sponge-whatever show?"

"We've got some _Scratchy and Bitey_ DVDs with us." He added.

"So not. It's bad enough when you want to sit and watch those things for hours. You'll just be craning your head so you can see it instead of keeping your eyes on the road."

He looked up at the screen, which was folded up into the ceiling for the moment. "I think they designed this so the driver couldn't see it at all. I know every one of them by heart, so I'd know what's really going on."

"You could let me drive for a while. Then you could sit back with the kids and watch them to your heart's content."

"Nah, I'm fine. I'd rather drive. Besides, when you drive, you move the seat and all the mirrors and you know the rule about the radio."

Kim crossed her arms. "Have you considered maybe I want to do some driving? Ever since we got married, it's always been you doing it all when we're together."

"We'll see. Maybe if you weren't such a hog with your car before I got mine."

"Hey, I let you drive, though it was my car, after all."

"You just never let me live it down that I wrecked that old motorcycle."

"So not the drama, Ron. Besides, if I wanted a bike I could go out and buy one." She lapsed into silence, realizing her husband was actually subconsciously baiting her into a fight. They hadn't had a motorcycle since they were both seventeen and now she wouldn't be able to ride one for months.

Who was driving was actually an old fight between them. Her parents had given her a PT Cruiser for graduation, not long before Ron's old used hatchback had bitten the dust for good. For the longest time, Kim became the primary driver between the two of them, on the basis it really was 'her' car, even though they tended to share almost everything else.

They all rode in silence for about the next twenty miles or so. Finally Ron looked back over his shoulder at the kids. "GJ, you get to pick where we have lunch. What do you want, Stinker?"

GJ glared back at his father. He utterly hated that nickname and would often not respond to him when he used it. Kim really couldn't blame him, having suffered through years of her father calling her 'Kimmie-cub,' a name she only barely tolerated. It didn't even seem to register with him when she came right out and said she hated it after being hit with Drakken's truth ray.

Kim closed her eyes. When that kind of question was posed to the boy there really was only one answer that could be expected. Fortunately, that one particular place was not all that common right off the interstates, at least as far as she knew. She turned around and forced a smile, waiting for the boy to answer.

The scowl slowly disappeared from his face, replaced with a little wicked grin that reminded her far too much of Ron's cousin Shawn. The boy was eighteen by then and had not mellowed one bit with age. He was still just as evil as before, only becoming much more intelligent in his dastardly activities. It was a good thing the little creep wasn't interested in family things so much as he got ready for college. If she had been forced to be around him any more than she was, she was certain she would have kicked his little red-haired biscuit by then.

"Bear-more's." He proclaimed loudly.

"I don't think we're going to find one of those out here." She said softly, hoping to divert him to another choice.

"You could look it up on the computer." CJ offered helpfully, earning her a glare from her sister-in-law and guardian.

"You don't even like J.P. Bearymore's." Kim said dryly.

CJ did her best to look sweet. "Just being nice to GJ."

"Right. GJ, isn't there any other place you'd like to go? I'm sure there's going to be plenty of Bueno Nachos. You really wanted that Lil Niño's meal yesterday."

"Want pizza." He said crossly, wrapping his arms tightly around his chest once more.

"The pizza's so much better at Pizza Shack. Why don't we go there instead. Like I said, there aren't that many J.P. Bearymore's out this way."

"I don want Pizza Shack. They smell funny."

"Honey, that's how real pizza is supposed to smell. They don't usually burn it, and that stuff they sell at Bearymore's is just frozen cardboard pizza." She didn't add that she still utterly hated going into those places. There was something about them that caused even well behaved kids to check their sense at the door. Not to mention they would only have time to eat before getting back on the road, meaning that all three of the (and likely Ron as well) would be upset they didn't have time to play any of the games or root around in the nasty ball-pit. Her son would not be satisfied without the full experience, meaning more flashbacks to battling a modified animatronic bear with laser beam eyes and being forced to dance for hours by a hypnotic disco ball.

He just kept glaring at his mother, arms crossed, trying his best to work up a proper pout. "Tell you what, Gene, why don't we wait until lunch time and see what we have to choose from. You do like Carl's Junior, or maybe there'll be something really nice. Maybe a GiGi's Pizza if you don't want to go to Pizza Shack." She curled her own nose up involuntarily. The pizza buffet at that place was only slightly better than the garbage they served at her boy's favorite 'family' place, but at least they had a salad bar, of sorts.

"Well, that didn't work out so well." Ron said glumly as Kim turned back toward the front.

Kim just buried her face in her hands. "Maybe we'll be in luck and the only thing around is a Burger Prince or something." She polished off the last of her coffee, wrinkling her nose at the weak taste of it. She even considered adding a bunch of sugar and cream to it like Ron did when he actually drank the stuff, though it was the pleasant buzz she missed most. That was perhaps the worst part about being pregnant, having to watch what she ate or drank. Alcohol wasn't a big issue, since she never had been a heavy drinker, but her doctor had insisted she give up caffeine as well.

The first couple weeks she was not pleasant company. It wasn't just her usual morning coffee, but drinks as well. No more cola, no more Red Bull, no more Dr. Pepper, no more Mountain Dew. She was usually relegated to the clear lemon-lime sodas or water, since most restaurants didn't carry the caffeine free versions of her favorites. Sure, they had diet, but she'd rather drink water than that anyway.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The silence didn't last very long, perhaps for a hundred miles or so. It started out innocently enough, with the girls playing the alphabet game with license tags. GJ tried getting in on it, but he was still in the process of learning his ABCs, so the girls tended to beat him pretty soundly at it, causing him to throw a tantrum every time one of them beat him to the next letter. It didn't help his seat was in the center of the middle seats as well, blocking his view. Kim finally turned around and ordered them to play something else. That meant a very similar round of "I spy," with comparable results. The worst came when CJ suggested they play punch buggy. Kim was relieved at first, considering how rare old-style Volkswagen beetles had become, but apparently there must have been a convention somewhere nearby, as they seemed to be everywhere.

Once again, the girls, especially CJ, were quickest spotting the unusual little cars, leading to the younger child squealing in his seat. At a loss about what to do, Kim simply passed the remote back to them and pulled down the DVD screen. That seemed to shut them up. For a while, at least.

After a couple hours of absolutely horrible cartoons, enough to make Kim wish her parents were there to lead them in travel songs, CJ started finally asking the one question kids always seemed to ask.

"Are we there yet?"

"We're not going to be there until late tonight, sis." Ron said. Kim finally took her turn at the wheel, so he was sitting in the passenger seat playing video games on the old Kimmunicator.

That seemed to satisfy them for about five minutes.

"Are we there yet?" Ammie asked finally, waking up from a short nap.

"Not yet." He responded, trying to go back to his game. He grimaced as the blocks on his Tetris game suddenly stacked all the way to the top, ending it. "Aw, man, I was ten thousand points from beating your high-score, Ammie."

"Can I play some, Uncle Ron?"

"No." Kim said flatly, looking at the girl in the mirror. "You're still being punished for last night. You never know what's on the other side of those portals."

"I do when they open, and nothing can get through if I don't let it."

"That's not the point, Amethyst. You know better than to use your powers without adult supervision. That's the rule."

She crossed her arms, sulking. "Mommy would let me use my powers."

Kim caught herself before she could say something like her Mommy wasn't there. It was amazing that anyone could miss the likes of Doctor Drakken and Shego, but they were her Mommy and "Daddy" and sometimes the girl could get into a crying jag that would last for hours. Sometime in the near future they were going to have to try contacting them so they could convince them to come back and spend some time with their daughter.

Before the sitch could get any worse, GJ chimed in. "Are we there yet?"

"No." Both parents chorused.

"Are we there yet?" CJ asked.

"Are we there yet?" The other two repeated.

"Are we there yet?" All three of them said in unison. Then they started repeating it, faster than the adults could reply with "No," getting louder and louder as the children increased in volume."

"That's it!" Kim finally shouted. "If I hear that question again, I'm turning this thing around and driving straight back to Middleton, without any stops whatsoever, then the three of you are going to be sent to your rooms with no TV, no games, no telephone, nothing! Do you understand me?"

The three of them looked at her in the mirror, grinning from ear to ear. Still, they remained silent.

Kim finally glanced over at Ron, who was grinning as well.

"What?" She asked, gripping the steering wheel a little harder than she needed to.

"Are we there yet?" He asked, touching off a serious giggle-fit behind them.

"Urrrrgh!" Kim screamed. "I mean it, the next ramp I come to, I'm turning around. Felix and Moni can just do without their Best Man and Matron of Honor. I can't take this any more. I swear, Ron Stoppable, the next time I go anywhere it better be on an airplane or a spaceship or even one of our jet-packs. There is no reason we have to spend two to three days driving across country crammed into this little vehicle. We could have spent an extra couple days of our vacation at home, then take a plane ride and still have plenty of time to see our friends, without a bunch of rug-rats who think it's funny to hide my son's underwear on a distant planet, where we don't know what kind of germs they have there, let alone if somebody is going to come along and find a big pile of a four-year-old's skivvies sitting there." She finally took a deep breath, half glaring at her husband, half watching the endless gray ribbon of concrete disappearing beneath their wheels.

Ron looked back at the kids, then at his loving wife of five years. "Are we there yet?" All four of them chorused at once.

"You'd better hope our hotel room has a couch in it, Stoppable." She growled, turning her attention back to the road.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fortunately, a four-year-old's attention span was significantly shorter than anyone else in the car. About one that afternoon Kim finally relented, taking an off-ramp that offered the best promise of finding something quick and easy for lunch. There wasn't a J.P. Bearymore's in sight, though she did have to stare Ron down when he suggested they check the database for one. They chose a fried-chicken chain, mostly because that managed to suit everyone, including CJ, though Kim turned her nose up at it. She was a dedicated chicken snob, eating only a drumstick and a couple corn on the cobs.

Ron took back over from that point, driving in relative silence for a few hours while the kids slept their midday meal off in the back seats. Somehow the girls managed to abscond to the very back row again, but neither adult bothered correcting them since they were intent on napping rather than planning some new horrible prank.

Kim would have slept all the way through herself, except for two sensations that interrupted her nap. With the seat tilted back, it was certainly comfortable enough, though she wished she could roll over sometimes.

"Where are we?" She asked sleepily, stretching as best she could.

"I think we're in West Virginia." The shadows were starting to get long, indicating the afternoon was wearing on into evening.

"You think? Hey, this isn't the interstate." They hit another bump, which was what had actually awakened her minutes earlier.

"I found what's supposed to be a shortcut on the navigation system. It should cut about a half-hour off our driving time."

Kim looked out the windows at the forest going by. The road was four lanes, but there was no divider, and it apparently had not been re-paved in their lifetimes. If it weren't for the plush suspension of the big SUV, they would have had their brains rattled by the uneven asphalt.

"Ron! You know better than to try this? What if we get lost? What if this road is closed somewhere? What if we need to stop?" There was absolutely nothing in view. There weren't even any signs. What was worse, was that they were utterly alone on the road.

Another bump brought the other sensation back to the forefront of her mind. It took her about an hour, but she did finish a super-sized drink. The effects were slowed down slightly by the lack of her favorite drink-borne stimulant, but it was upon her anyway.

"Speaking of finding a place to stop…" She said softly.

"I'll look for a place. There has to be a gas station or something back here."

Kim grunted. "Just hope there's not some toothless guy with a banjo sitting on the porch when we get there."

"KP, that's just an old movie. I'm sure West Virginia is nothing like that. We've been in the south before. Remember how much you loved Savannah?"

"Ron, Savannah is a city that makes a big part of its living off of tourists. You really should have stuck to the main road, no matter how boring it was. Now look, if you don't find a place soon, it's gonna be camping style, if you know what I mean."

"Got it. You think, maybe, with all the extra pressure on your bladder that maybe you shouldn't drink so much?"

"Not everyone's got your super-sized Slurpster sized bladder, honey. Look, I don't see anything nearby, why don't you just pull over. There's plenty of tree-cover, if you know what I mean."

Nodding, he pulled off to the side. Stopping was enough to rouse the kids, meaning Kim basically had to wait her turn while they took care of their business first. At least the girls went together, already learning the habit of the human female of going in packs.

GJ was fussing about needing to 'go stinky' but Kim just told him to hold it until they got to some place clean. He wasn't too happy about that, but allowed Ron to put him back in his booster seat.

Kim was, for the first time that day, thankful she was wearing a maternity dress. She thought it looked like a pup-tent on her, but it made things easier when she finally found a stand of trees that afforded her a bit of privacy. The ground was covered in some leafy green vegetation that seemed to be all over the place. At first she thought it might be Kudzu, but that was more of a vine that grew up over the trees. This was a smaller plant with waxy leaves in sets of three. At least it wasn't the poison oak that was the bane of outdoorsmen back where they lived.

Feeling relieved, if not refreshed, she started to stand up, but with her center of gravity thrown off by her swollen midsection, she slipped slightly, landing in a patch of the greenery with her bare rump. Muttering to herself, she got back up, pulled up her drawers and headed back to the truck.

"Better?" Ron asked as they pulled back onto the road.

"Yeah, much, thank you. Just one thing, Ronnie. The next sign you see leading back to the interstate, you take it, okay? I'm just a tad uncomfortable on these back roads."

He nodded as they got back up to speed, even checking the map on their navigation system for a route back to the main road.

Kim shifted slightly, scratching her backside. Why was it starting to itch?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kim Possible and all related characters © Disney


	6. Chapter 6

**_Cross Country_: Chapter 6**

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Dammit. Ron, pull over." Kim had been fidgeting terribly for a while and had gotten to the point where she just couldn't stand it any more.

"What's the matter, KP? Gotta go again, already?"

"No." She moaned, opening the door even before he got to a complete stop. She hopped out onto the grassy shoulder, vigorously scratching her backside.

Ron watched in confusion. He was half-expecting her to throw up when he pulled off the road – something that had happened with alarming regularity before she started showing. Sometimes it was only a whiff or even a food she normally liked that would set her off. That had slowly tapered off, but after two full days traveling, he was starting to expect it.

Seeing her digging into her glutes with her fingernails was just not something he expected. Then she did something he would have never believed if he wasn't seeing it with his own eyes. She hitched her dress up and stuck her hands down the back of her underpants, scratching for all she was worth.

Slowly it started dawning on him what may have happened. When he took his turn back at their 'rest stop' is was purely zip and go. The girls obviously didn't have it so easy. "Uh, you didn't happen to see any Poison Oak back there, did you?"

"No." She whined. "I think I know what poison oak looks like, and so do you. If you get within ten feet of it, you'd be itching."

By this point the girls had their faces pressed against the side windows, trying to figure out the strange dance their guardian was doing. Both their eyes were as big as saucers.

"I'm not allergic to it like you are anyway."

"Well, something's got you going. Hey, better let the dress back down, there's a car coming."

She did so, but kept grinding her butt against the edge of the door. "Oh, this is ferociously bad." She watched the pickup roll by, then went back to scratching more directly.

"Kim, if you're itching that bad, it had to be something. Did you brush up against anything?"

"No. Well, yeah, I slipped a little and sat down hard. So not the best way to go, you know." She pointed over at the tree-line at the ground cover, which still looked bright green even though the sun was almost down. "I sat on that plant, whatever it is."

There was a slight whirring sound as the passenger side rear window rolled down. "Aunt Kim, that's poison ivy." Amethyst said, pointing at the leafy ground cover.

"Huh? I thought that was just another name for poison oak."

"Nope. We were studying that in school. It's a whole other plant. Poison Ivy, Poison Oak and Poison Sumac. The teacher said you could recognize it because the leaves were always in threes. Leaves-of-three, let-it-be." She sing-songed.

"Great, just great. Lovely shortcut, Ron. Not only are we probably lost, but now I've got a poison rash to deal with, and let me guess, we're a hundred miles from any kind of drug store."

"I dunno. You, uh, better quit scratching that, KP."

"Gee, thanks…Mom. I know I'm not supposed to scratch it, but whoever thought up that wasn't itching like this!

"Look, you might as well get back in. We've still got a long way to go tonight."

"Nuh uh. Next town we come to, we're stopping. I don't care if it's got one motor court and we have to share the room with Roachie's cousins, I'm not riding any further tonight, and let me tell you, the only way you're touching me tonight is to put on calamine lotion!" She glanced back at the kids. That last comment probably went over CJ's head, but Amethyst certainly got it, considering how the small girl was giggling.

"Whoa, KP. If you've got that much of it on you it's getting you like that, you might give it to me."

"Ron!" Gritting her teeth, she climbed back into the SUV, shifting from side to side. She had obviously irritated it further with her overzealous scratching. Still, she kept trying to dig her fingernails into it.

Ron grimaced, realizing what she had been doing at the time and where the poison might be spreading to. "Okay, this doesn't count." He picked the Kimmunicator up off the dash and hit the call button. They both waited expectantly until the screen finally lit up. The face on it wasn't quite the one they expected.

"Hey, ya'll, what's the sitch?" Joss asked. She had recently gotten her hair cut much shorter than she ever had before, and they were all still trying to get used to it.

"Where's Wade?" Kim asked, trying to hide her fidgeting from her cousin.

"He's takin the night off ta go out with Yori, so Ah'm babysittin the TP system and little 'Dori here." She panned the webcam downwards so they could see the coffee-skinned toddler sitting on her lap.

"Okay, whatever." Kim said, leaning over the Kimmunicator, but carefully not touching it just in case she could actually transmit some of the toxic oils from her fingertips. "Do you know how to use the GPS lock?"

"Sure do. Wow, jes where in the heck are you?"

"Supposedly West Virginia." Kim replied coldly.

"Well, I can see that, but what in tarnation are ya doin so far off the main road? Dang, you should a been clear to Charleston by now."

"Mister Shortcut here thought he found a better route." Kim growled. "Are we close to anything?"

"You're about five miles outside a place called Cass."

"Is there any place to stay there?"

"Lemme see. Yeah, looks like it's a tourist place. They've even got trains, like we've got over here in Durango."

"Cool. Thanks, Joss."

"Hey, Ron, thought ya'll would be gettin to North Cakalakee tonight. Run into a heap a trouble?"

"Nothing we can't handle, Joss. KP just took a leak in a field of poison ivy."

Regardless of whether she was contagious, Kim smashed her finger down on the off-button, but not before they both could hear the younger woman rolling around laughing.

"Ronald Eugene Stoppable." She said with a low voice, her teeth clenched.

He knew he was in trouble, but he couldn't help but laugh himself. "Okay, KP. We'll stop in this Cass place and get you fixed up. Better call Mom P before it gets to late and see what you can take. There might even be some Benadryl in the first aid kit. I know there's a bottle of calamine there, but I'm willing to bet you're going to need more."

She held up her hands. "Just drive. The sooner we can get a room, the sooner I can put my butt in a tub of hot water."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ron finally got Kim to settle down. After talking to her mother about her predicament, it was decided it would be better for her to take a shower and scrub the affected areas instead of soaking them, just in case the oils from the plant would spread in the hot water. The toxin in poison ivy was supposed to be the same as in poison oak, but there had to be some small difference since she wasn't usually terribly allergic to the plant that was common at home. Then too, it could have been some of the chemistry changes her body was going through because of her pregnancy. At any rate, her Mom prescribed a single 25mg Benadryl, calamine lotion and no scratching!

The hot water of the shower gave her some relief, but she was whining by the time she stretched out on her stomach on the bed while Ron carefully applied the pink lotion.

"This is so not how I thought tonight would go."

"I don't know, I kind of figured I'd have my hands all over your backside. Gives new meaning to rosy cheeks."

"Very funny, Ron. I'm just way cranked, considering before long we'll have to quit for a while. I hated when I went into that slump for a couple months just as much as you did."

He smoothed another coating of the cool fluid onto her backside. There were welts in the rash where she had dug in with her fingernails too vigorously and was likely going to have to sleep just like she was, which wasn't a pleasant thought with the shape of her abdomen. That was, if she was going to be able to sleep at all. It was one thing to be naked together for the right reasons, it was quite another to be lying in the bed with your nightgown pulled up to the small of your back. Kim just made the best of it, trying to enjoy his touch.

"Maybe taking a Benadryl won't be so bad." Normally she hated taking antihistamines. One of the normal side-effects of the older, but generally safer versions was that it made her extremely drowsy. There were newer pills that didn't do it quite as much, but her mother insisted she only take that one drug. Kim was nothing if not immensely careful about what she put in her body while she was pregnant, so she could live with the sleepiness.

By sleepy, it was more like curl up wherever she happened to be an go to sleep. That was why she normally avoided taking them unless she absolutely had to. That worked out fine most of the time since she wasn't prone to be allergic to much.

She waited until they were in their motel room to call her Mom. She even went so far as to make Ron go to the kids' room while she made the call. She was not the least bit ashamed around him, but for some reason such an intimate discussion ,which was more doctor/patient than mother/daughter still seemed like it should be private. For one thing, she had to admit to her mother how she got such an interesting case of poison ivy. For another, her scratching had not only aggravated the existing rash, it caused it to spread. While the inside of the SUV was comfortable and cool, when she stopped and got out she was hit by a wall of hot, humid southern air, and in moments was bathed in sweat.

The rash was now on her hands, but the sweat had caused it to spread to other areas. Very…delicate areas. She was glad she was using her cell-phone and not the Kimmunicator, since there was a video-phone at home. She didn't want to see her Mom's face when she said she had an itchy rash…down there.

Anne Possible didn't help matters when she proceeded to regale her daughter with the tale of the time when she was doing her internship and had to treat a young couple who decided to go au-natural in what turned out to be a field of poison oak. Kim pulled a face, realizing her Mom knew the two of them sometimes could get somewhat frisky (like mother, like daughter) and quickly pointed out that sort of thing was most def not happening with the kids in tow.

It still tweaked her that she wasn't able to enjoy her alone time with Ron. She wasn't kidding when she said it bothered her when her drive bottomed out during her second trimester. She missed him, even though he was right there with her and she knew he didn't enjoy the few times they did make love during that time simply because he knew she wasn't enjoying it. That was probably the worst part of it. Now she not only couldn't be with him during their trip, it was likely going to take a week to fully heal up, and the way she figured it, if things went like her last pregnancy, they only had a few weeks left for a while.

She closed her eyes and concentrated on the large hands caressing her. The medicine was already starting to kick in, dulling the ferocious itching. That also meant her mind was starting to drift. Any moment she would be fast asleep, but she thought back to a night about a month earlier. Their wedding anniversary was Independence Day and the kids had all been sent to a sleep-over at her parent's house.

After they came home from the annual fireworks display (something they never, ever missed) Kim went around the room, lighting candles, lamenting the fact they couldn't light the fireplace in their bedroom since it was high summer. They still spent a good part of the night on the couch facing the fireplace before heading to the bed. The night was magical for both of them, even though she was showing pretty well by that point. Then, a few weeks later came her birthday, then a week later his. With her mind quickly fogging under the effects of the allergy medicine, they all seemed to roll into one.

She opened her eyes, smiling as she saw Ron coming back from the bathroom sink, having washed the rapid-drying calamine from his hands. Before the meds kicked in, her own hands were starting to itch a little as well, having gotten a dose of the fresh poison when she stopped to scratch. She let her lids droop back down as she felt him get under the covers beside her. He carefully pulled them up over her lower legs, leaving her bare rump exposed and cool in the dark room.

The memories of their special nights still fresh in her mind, she shifted her head so it was in the crook of his shoulder. Vaguely, she thought she was still supposed to be upset with him for his ill-fated shortcut and for the teasing he had done once he realized what her predicament was, but all she could really think about at that particular moment was how much she loved him…

…and that there was another itch she wanted to scratch.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Amethyst opened her eyes and looked around the room. It was much smaller than the room they had been in the night before, but it still had two beds. CJ was beside her, sound asleep with her tangled blonde locks covering most of her face. Two days of travel and a night spent giggling and gabbing with her best friend and roommate had finally caught up to her, so she was out like a light, just like her nephew, who was quietly snoring in the adjacent bed.

She was dead-tired herself, but something was bothering her. As funny as it had been to watch 'Aunt' Kim scratching, she didn't like to see people uncomfortable or in pain. That meant she had to do something about it.

The small girl had a secret. It was something that nobody knew about yet, not her guardians, not her mother, not even CJ. Maybe her real father had an inkling, but she had barely ever seen him. It was a secret that gave her a way to help.

As quietly as she could, she slipped out of the bed. She gathered her long, violet nightgown up so she wouldn't chance tripping on it and went to the door, delicately slipping the chain off and pulling it open. The night air was warm and humid, hitting her in the face as she pulled the door almost closed, leaving her a way to get back inside since it would lock automatically if she pulled it completely to. Ron had the keys to their room, so she had to be careful not to lock herself out.

It was well after midnight and the town was rather quiet, but she had been told all her life how dangerous the world could be, especially in a strange place like they were in. That didn't bother her in the least. Rules or no, if she was in any real danger she knew her powers would protect her, one way or another. If anyone approached her, she had the option of using her glow-powers to blast someone, or she could simply lens away to safety. If either of her sleeping guardians knew about her boldness, they would likely ground her for a month, but she was always careful about it. She had great power and she relished using it, even if that meant practicing in secret.

The one thing she didn't count on, however, was that Kim and Ron's room was locked just as firmly as hers should have been. She scowled, thinking again that if her mother had seen fit to teach her some of her skills, she would have been able to easily pick the lock. The motel was an older one and had not yet converted to the more modern key-cards, using a traditional deadbolt instead. She furrowed her brow, trying to think how she might get it. The nicer place they had been at the night before had adjoining rooms, and the door had been left unlocked just in case any of the kids needed the adults. There was no such convenience at this place, and it really wouldn't have been a good idea for any of them to have their doors unsecured.

Biting her lower lip, she sneaked back into her own room, holding the door handle so it wouldn't click as it latched. She put the chain back on and tiptoed past the other sleeping kids, closing the door to the bathroom.

There was another way into Kim and Ron's room.

Since there was nobody watching her, there was no reason for fake hand gestures. All she had to do was stretch out her mind. In an instant she was aware of her precise location in the cosmos. She had already learned she was attuned to what must be the center of the universe. For her powers to work the way they did, she had to know that one, fixed point. From there she knew not only how the Earth itself was spinning, but how it was orbiting the sun, and how that star was orbiting the center of the galaxy. The galaxy itself was moving. She didn't pretend to understand all of those factors, but instinct played a role in it. She knew how her particular point in space was moving in relation to that central point, allowing her to open a portal.

Just as she had the night before, she opened it slowly so she wouldn't alert the sleeping Stoppables. Only this time it was larger, just large enough for her to step through. She also created it upright, instead of flat.

Moments later she was in a completely dark room. It smelled slightly musty and metallic. Cautiously, she ignited her glow, lighting the room very slightly. Convinced she was perfectly alone in the old, forgotten nook, she created yet another lens, opening it just as slowly so nobody on the other end would be alerted to its presence.

It took more concentration this time. Even though it was only about twenty feet away from her origin point, it was still a 'blind' port. It scared her to do that, not knowing what would happen if she was just slightly off. It hadn't happened yet, but that was one of the things her parents and guardians were afraid of. What if she materialized in a solid object like a wall? Or, in this case, the tub?

Holding her breath, she stepped through again.

Her aim was true. She was standing in the middle of a bathroom identical to the one in her room. As quietly as she could, she let the lens effect fade and let herself out into the room.

Kim and Ron were curled up together in the bed. She could tell they were asleep, since Kim was snoring the same way her son was next door.

Amethyst blushed, realizing her guardian's back was uncovered. She had accidentally walked in on them in the past, forgetting the rule she wasn't to come into their bedroom uninvited unless it was an emergency. Still, they were asleep and were mostly covered up.

She held her breath and delicately put her hand on her Kim's shoulder. She stopped snoring for a moment, but didn't completely wake up. The reason was pretty easy for her powerful mind to deduce. The medicine she had seen Ron getting out for her made her sleepy. She relaxed a little bit, more confident she wasn't going to wake them up.

Her secret was actually quite simple. She could heal people. It was one of the reasons she was never, ever sick. Her body automatically healed any infection that tried to take hold in her system. On top of that, she could heal other people. CJ and GJ often came down with colds, but she would fix them up the first chance she got. Somehow she could instinctively tell what was wrong, and her mind was able to repair the damage. There had even been a time when GJ had taken a particularly bad spill on his bike and hit his head. He hadn't been wearing his helmet, but fortunately she was there. When Kim came running out of the house, she was holding him. She never told her 'Aunt' that she saved his life that day.

She could sense what the poisons from the plants were doing to her. It wasn't bad, it just made life uncomfortable. With just a tiny expenditure of energy, she fixed it. She left the medicine working in her system, keeping her in a deep sleep, but she would awaken the next morning without discomfort.

Her job done, she snuck out the front door rather than risking another 'port.' Moments later, she was back in her bed, finally relieving her own young body of the exhaustion that came from using that particular power.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kim Possible and all related characters © Disney


	7. Chapter 7

**_Cross Country_: Chapter 7**

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The day dawned gray and misty up in the mountains of eastern West Virginia, preventing a trip to the pool for the kids one more day. The girls just took it in stride but GJ was incensed by the prospect, even though the rain made the already cool mountain air almost frigid, at least to a group of people dressed for high summer. The fact they all had to go back into their rooms and change into long pants instead of shorts didn't sway the small boy in the least. It was summer, they were staying in a motel, and that meant a visit to the swimming pool to him, and anything less simply was not to be.

Kim took it all in stride, letting his tantrum play itself out before they piled into the SUV to find breakfast. Ron was all for tanning his hide, but she just held him back, convincing him to let their son burn out naturally instead of simply adding to the problem with a punishment which would have him sulking all day.

She was feeling especially good that morning, having gotten the best sleep she had in a while. The combination of Ron's ministrations with the calamine, the antihistamine and what she thought in the morning light to be an ill-advised session of married affection turned out to be just what she needed. Apparently she was either not as allergic to the poison ivy as she seemed, or the combination of all that, plus a good shower, did the trick. She was in too good a mood to let an irritable four-year-old ruin it. If he did that later in the day when there were other people around, then she would have something to say to him, but while they were still at the motel she could send the girls to fill up the cooler at the ice machine while he had his little fit.

To make it up to the kids, Ron found one of those places that would bring out mountains of pancakes, something that was always universally pleasing to everyone, though he did act up again when they wouldn't let him order a stack of pancakes a foot high. Things got worse when Ron tried ordering that for himself, only to have it firmly vetoed by Kim, who still had to keep close tabs on what he ate.

"Aw, come on KP. It's for Rufus too, you know." He patted the cargo pocket Kim's mother had sewn onto his jeans for him, where he had been sleeping for the great majority of the trip. She knew the vet had said it would be normal for him to slow down at that age. Naked Mole Rats had been known to live as long as thirty years in captivity, but that was the exception. By all rights, he should have been getting on in his years, and really did sleep most of the time anyway, even when he was in his prime. Yet, when food was mentioned, he was there, ready to go.

He popped his head out of the pocket, probably hearing his name. Either that, or he could smell the delicious breakfast smells that permeated the establishment. In a flash, he was out on the table, tying a paper napkin around his neck as if it were a bib. "Uh huh. Pancakes." He squeaked quite clearly. The longer Kim was around him, the clearer his strange speech got, though others would claim all they could hear was his rat-like chittering.

Amethyst's blue eyes lit up when he appeared. CJ and GJ tended to be unconcerned about Ron's long-time pet, but the waif-like girl absolutely adored him. Her reaction when she saw him was much like Kim's cousin Joss had when she first met the little pink animal, to the point the young woman had given the little girl her large stuffed Rufus when she first moved in with them.

"You know what the vet said about his diet, Ron. Human food just has too much carbohydrates in the for him. He needs lots of lean protein and vegetables."

That made Rufus put his tiny hands on his hips and glare at the woman he considered one of 'his humans.' It was one thing for her to watch what her mate ate, it was quite another for her to keep him from eating his favorites, which tended to be just about anything edible.

"Aw, come off it, KP. Vacation rules apply here. You want pancakes, Rufus?"

"Uh huh, uh huh." He squeaked, nodding his tiny head vigorously.

Before he could say anything else, Ammie picked him up and cuddled him against her cheeks. Rufus just ate up the attention. Being held by the little girl was one of the high points of his day, and he always came away brighter and more cheerful from her affection.

"Besides, Kim, who would trust a skinny chef?" He leaned over toward her and gave her thigh a little squeeze. "More of me to love, you know."

She rolled her eyes, still in too good a mood to let him draw her into the old argument. If they were home and the kids weren't there, she would have reminded him that executive chefs who just happened to own the restaurant didn't need to be fat, if the food was good enough, and she wanted to still have all of him to love when they were in their eighties.

"I'm starving." Amethyst said, eying an omelette that another patron was digging into.

"It won't take them long." Ron said, spreading a napkin on his lap. "These places make their money by turning the tables as fast as they can. They have to do that, or the people waiting would just head to the fast food joints out on the highway."

Even though it was technically bad manners, Kim leaned on her elbow, looking at the kids with hooded eyes, smiling softly. Amethyst being hungry at breakfast time was a little odd. She normally ate like a bird, and her tiny frame could testify. She wasn't a fussy eater, just a light one. Still, every now and again she would be ravenous, putting away enough food for all three children at one sitting. Kim just figured she was making up for all the times when her appetite was nearly non-existent. Those times also seemed to coincide with the mornings when it was hard to rouse her out of bed. She woke up that morning after much prodding, and still was dragging after she got dressed. As if on cue, she yawned mightily, putting Rufus back down on the table.

"Didn't you get enough sleep last night Ammie?" Ron asked.

"Yeah. Just slept really good…and I was having the greatest dream."

"Talking about dreams before breakfast is bad luck." CJ chimed in. She was still scanning the menu, which was printed on her placemat. "I really would like some meat. Don't that have anything that's not made from pig?"

"Guess you could have the steak, if somebody wants to split it with you."

"I call dibs." Kim raised her hand. As much as she was looking forward to seeing their old friends, she knew the rehearsal dinner was bound to be overcooked, over-spiced chicken of some sort, with the rest of the fare being only slightly better than what could be found at any school cafeteria. She loved steak, whether it was a pan fried breakfast steak or the filet that Ron's restaurant _Chez Kimberly_ served, and didn't pass up an opportunity to eat them.

"Something wrong, baby?" She asked as Ron fidgeted in his seat.

"I dunno. Maybe I have put on a couple pounds. My jeans just aren't comfortable this morning."

"Try squeezing into them when your belly is getting an inch bigger by the hour." She patted the aforementioned part of her body. Kim hated maternity clothes, especially the dresses but finally gave in during the latter parts simply because it was impossible to get into even the baggy pants she normally favored. The jeans she was wearing that morning only looked like regular denim, being made of a stretchy fabric that relieved some of the pressure on her midsection. The t-shirt she was wearing didn't help much either. Ron bought it for her when she was pregnant with GJ and he took advantage of her good mood to get her to wear it that day. It was sky blue, with a pink decal that spelled out "Baby" with a large arrow pointing at her belly.

Ron's agitation was getting worse. "Be right back, KP. If the waitress comes back, order me the Farmer's breakfast with five flapjacks and a large OJ."

"Vacation rules?" She half-scowled at him. The breakfast in question consisted of eggs, bacon, sausage and country ham, with a side of home-fries or something called grits.

"Yeah. I swear to you, when we get home it's going to be grilled chicken salads and bottled water, but for right now, I'm going to live it up. Gotta go." He said finally, scurrying toward the men's room.

"It's usually the other way around, isn't it?" CJ asked, watching her brother go.

"Yeah, that's strange." She shrugged, knowing for a fact when one has to go, one _has _to go.

Ron was gone for what seemed like a fairly long time, long enough not only to order, but for their food to be brought out. Finally, she got concerned enough she excused herself and went to knock on the bathroom door.

"Ron?" She put her ear to the door. The place was small enough it had just single stall bathrooms. "You okay, honey?"

"Can you come in here a moment KP?"

"Ew, no. What's wrong?"

"Well, you know, last night, when we…"

"Yeah."

"I think you were still a little contagious."

She rolled her eyes, letting out a little exasperated groan. "Ron, come on out. Your food's getting cold. Well, no, I bet Rufus is eating all of it for you. Quit being such a baby, I couldn't had it that bad if it cleared up so fast."

He slowly opened the door, stepping out like he was play-acting at a dude-ranch. "Kim, it's bad."

"So not the drama, Ron. Come on, we've still got a few hundred miles to make up this morning. Where did it get you."

"Does the phrase 'worst-case-scenario' mean anything to you.

Her mood was fading fast. "You don't mean."

"Oh yes, I do."

"Let's just go back to the table. You can take a Benadryl and I'll do the driving, okay. When we get to the hotel in Durham, I'll take a look."

"Aw man."

"Just…wait, you haven't been scratching, have you?"

"Can't help it. It's…just…the…itching. Why won't the itching stop?"

"Uggh. Just…go back in there and wash your hands. If it gets bad enough we'll think of something, just buck up and come back to the table."

They managed to get through breakfast, though Ron barely touched the huge pile of food on his plates. Ammie and Rufus managed to make up for him, though both of them could barely walk by the time they left. The mole rat had nearly doubled in size, which meant there would likely be extra rest stops for him. It also meant they would likely be running with the windows down for part of the trip, which wasn't all that fun for the three long-haired females in the SUV.

Kim was concerned for her husband. Granted, he could whine like a baby when something was wrong with him, especially considering he rarely got sick or injured. In fact, the last time he had really been terribly ill was during the winter of their senior year of college when he nearly came down with pneumonia after an ill-fated, unexpected winter mission. Then, that spring both of them came down with the flu. Whatever bugs could get through his vaunted 'Stoppable Fortress of Immunity' had to be a whopper.

Since he was bigger than her, and obviously not pregnant, he took too of the pills, theorizing he would need the extra help since there was no good way to put on any calamine lotion. If it was as bad as he said it was, where he said it was, she knew he was in a world of misery. He sat in the passenger seat with his legs as far apart as he could manage, dozing fitfully as the antihistamine took hold.

Kim tried to keep her mind on the road, wondering what else could go wrong with the trip. At least the kids were being quiet for the moment. Their bellies were full and like anyone, they didn't really sleep so well in a strange bed. She was also roundly cursing herself for what was turning out to be a really bad decision on her part the night before. It really didn't help, but she tried convincing herself that she really wasn't thinking too clearly as the medication worked both on her own itching and her mind. Maybe the makers of the drug needed to add something else to the line about not operating heavy machinery when under its influence. She just had to hold out hope that he would get over it as quickly as she had.

It was amazing how many lonely, two-lane roads that part of the country had. She made a promise to herself to actually do more of the driving, or at least stay awake so Ron couldn't get off the main road. There was no telling how much time they actually lost. Sure, the interstates were the long way around, but they more than made up for it with the ease which you could put the miles behind you.

"Aw, come on." She muttered as a highway worker stepped into the road with a stop sign. Up ahead there was a large earth-mover crossing the highway. The work itself was well off the road, but they had to block it temporarily to move the equipment.

Drumming her fingers on the sill of the open window, she glanced at the traffic backing up behind them. It was still fairly early and they were well away from the town, so the road had been fairly quiet, but the cars were starting to stack up slightly. She busied herself trying to discern the make and model of the vehicles behind her, finding it pretty tough since she really wasn't much of a car person. She knew their big vehicle was probably garnering a lot of attention, and wondered what would happen if she suddenly reset the color of the paint.

No. There were a few high-end cars on the road that used the Freeman color shift technology, but it was something that was normally relegated to either the ultra-rich or one of the crazies that raced hopped up small Japanese cars. Since she was neither, she didn't want to bring that kind of attention, especially on a lonely stretch of country road. Still, the silver she chose the first day was a little on the boring side.

A slightly louder engine snapped her attention back to the traffic piling up behind them. A large semi had pulled into the line, idling while they waited for the equipment to clear out of the way. Whoever was operating the link-belt backhoe was taking his own sweet time. Yet another reason not to take a shortcut without at least four lanes.

She glanced back at the truck again. After three days on the road, she had almost totally forgotten her near panic when she thought the driver might mean them some harm. She had no way of telling for certain, but the truck looked almost identical to the one they had seen in Kansas. Kim shook her head, smiling oddly. There was no way the same tanker truck would still be behind them. It was simply out there delivering its load to the sparse gas stations out there.

It seemed like the backhoe was stalled. She was impatient to get back to the interstate. Once they finally found their way to Interstate 77, the rest of the trip would fly by in short order. She spent almost an hour on the phone with Monique the night before, telling her about their trip so far and apologizing for not being there when they hoped. Not that it would have made any difference. It would have been close to midnight when they got in anyhow and she wouldn't have gotten the strangely good nights sleep she had, before Felix and Ron disappeared to catch up on the last few years.

Finally the lanes cleared. She rolled her eyes as she passed the work site. If Ron were awake he would have been crawling the walls at the delay. He was normally laid back, but when he got behind the wheel his temper had a way of getting the best of him. That made her wonder what his many trips to Bueno Nacho headquarters had been like. The road was pretty much the same as this one, just straighter, but a hundred miles each direction, several times a week had to be tiring, especially since he would only have Rufus to keep him company.

She glanced at the kids. They were all sound asleep again, digesting their oversized breakfast. Thank goodness for small favors. Once their little bodies had processed all the carbohydrates and simpler sugars, they were going to be more than a handful, especially GJ. Kim smiled warmly at the tableau. Ammie's and Little Gene's heads had slumped together. Despite the difference in their age, the girl was small enough that she still looked especially cute like that, more like she was six or seven instead of eight and a half, with the mind of a teenager. Even Rufus was back with them, curled up in her lap, sleeping softly on her violet bellbottom denims.

Kim turned her attention back to the road, hunting for signs that would guide them back to the blessed interstate. She was actually starting to like Ron's new vehicle. It was smooth as silk, and even with the synthetic engine noises, quieter than even her little modified Chrysler. It was also fast, and she had to watch herself. There used to be a day when folks said there wasn't a cop in Middleton who would stop Kim Possible for speeding. That wasn't actually the case, but she did manage to escape getting any fines or points on her license. Chief Hobble stopped her the most during his patrol days, simply to remind her to be more careful.

That wouldn't be the case out here where nobody would know her. She had been out of the public eye long enough she figured most folks wouldn't remember her, unless they had been young girls who idolized her at the time. Now she was a pregnant wife in a doctorate program driving what would be an extremely expensive SUV even if it wasn't for the modifications and being such, a prime target for a patrolman looking to meet his quota.

Still, she was pushing seventy miles per hour, pulling way ahead of the traffic that backed up at the work site. She almost wanted to get the vehicle on a closed track just to see what it was actually capable of once Jean Anne came.

She glanced behind her at the other cars. That's when she saw the truck pull around and pass several of them. That made her a little concerned. It was fine for a vehicle with a top-notch suspension to drive fast on a moderately winding road like they were on. If the trucker wasn't careful, he could hurt a lot more people than himself, and the fact he was hauling highly inflammable fuel…

Kim looked in the mirror, noting he was doing it again, leaving only two other cars between them. She made a mental note to get his tag number when he passed to report him to the company responsible for the tanker.

He pulled into the left lane once more, ducking right behind a rather garishly painted truck with big-foot styled tires. There was something familiar about the pickup, but she dismissed it, focusing on the truck instead.

She could make out the details more clearly on it then. It was a black, long-nosed, long-distance semi with lots of polished chrome…

…including a silhouette of a reclining woman.

Kim's eyes got wide. It _was_ the same truck.

This time there was no doubt it had been following them.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kim Possible and all related characters © Disney


	8. Chapter 8

**_Cross Country_: Chapter 8**

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kim's eyes snapped back to the road in front of them, rapidly apprising the sitch she found herself in. She was driving a new vehicle which she didn't know the full capabilities of and the roads were narrow, winding and very slightly wet from the mists. While she was certain the huge vehicle was capable of considerable speed, it was much higher off the ground than either her or Ron was used to. If she had been in her PT Cruiser, or even Ron's Trans Am, she would have already jammed down the accelerator, but she didn't know the terrain and she was worried she might flip the top-heavy seeming Glissade.

The strangest sensation was the sudden surge of adrenaline she was feeling. When she spotted the truck two days earlier, she had been an a passenger seat, unable to do anything. What's more, she was back with the kids. Then she only felt apprehension and worry. Now she was behind the wheel, in a position to actually do something instead of sitting powerless.

Having the kids with them was a double edged sword. If somebody were coming after them, then she would do everything in her power to keep them from coming to harm. She was the mother bear with her cubs when it came to her children, whether they were the product of her womb, the sister of her husband or a child entrusted to her. In that moment the exact nature of their relationship did not matter. Being their guardian meant more than just being the one to exercise authority over them, or be on hand when the school or day care called. That meant she was their protector as well.

The toughest part of the decision was whether she was going to risk their lives in a high-speed chase, or risk them simply hoping that nothing was about to happen. The latter seemed to be out of the question. If that truck had been following them the whole time, then it had been hanging back, waiting for the right moment to strike. Either that moment had come, or it simply was forced to reveal itself at the road-block. What mattered was that it was gaining on them, closing the gap between it and the tricked-out pickup immediately behind them.

Her thought process took all of about two seconds from the moment the truck pulled back into their lane. Her foot mashed down on the accelerator, sending the SUV surging forward.

"Ron, wake up." Kim said, as calmly as she could. If things got bad, there was no way she was going to keep the kids out of it, but as long as they could remain napping in the back, the better. "Baby, wake up." She risked taking one hand off the wheel, shaking his knee.

"Are we there yet?" He stretched in his seat, his eyes not quite willing to open. He wasn't going to be much use for driving any time soon, but at least she wanted him awake and aware of what was going on.

"Mission mode." She said softly. It had literally been years since those particular words had escaped her lips. That was a torch that had long been passed to her brothers and cousin. The world of being a wife, mother and business manager both of _Team Possible_ and _Chez Kimberly_, all while being in a doctorate program did not lend itself to actively playing the hero any longer.

All the same, there was a surge of excitement that came with saying them that reminded her just how much she missed it. She would never have imagined that, by twenty-seven she would already be considering herself retired. Her life, Ron's life and the lives of the kids might have been in danger, but she would have been lying to herself if she said she wasn't actually looking forward to some action.

Double dose of a strong antihistamine notwithstanding, those words had a particularly powerful effect on Ron as well. He was instantly awake and alert, as if he was imagining himself back in his old three-quarter sleeved black turtleneck instead of an _Aged Army_ US Flag t-shirt.

Kim nodded over her shoulder. "See who's behind us?"

He blinked twice, trying to fight off the lingering grogginess. "Um, okay, so there's a redneck driving a monster truck behind us. So?"

"Look behind him." She mashed on the accelerator again. As powerful as the four electric motors were supposed to be, she didn't seem to be gaining any ground on the huge semi.

Ron, to his credit, didn't scream when he saw the truck. If anything, he was by far the more paranoid of the two. He probably would have noticed it quicker than she did if he had been awake for the last twenty minutes.

Ron turned back to the front, checking out the gauges. "Uh, KP, you realize you're doing eighty?"

"I'm the one driving. Believe me, if I knew this thing better we'd be doing a hundred by now."

He looked back over his shoulder. If anything, the truck was even closer. Whoever was driving it had to be out of his mind, as wet at the roads were. The mists had most likely been coming down all night, and the conditions were steadily getting worse. If that truck lost it…

Then he noticed something.

"Uh, KP."

"Kinda busy here, Ron."

"It's pretty _importante_." He added, throwing in a bit of pigeon Spanish.

"Ron, it's all I can do to pay attention to the road at this speed."

"KP, Hit the gas!" He shouted finally.

Trust was not an issue between them. When he said something like that, she pretty much did. They had functioned as a team for too long to do otherwise. He was still prone to silliness, but when the sitch warranted, he could be just as deadly serious as she was.

The SUV lurched forward as she floored the pedal. The sound system wasn't designed to cover for that kind of performance, so it cut out when the needle topped one-hundred, making their ride eerily quiet. Kim finally risked a glance in the mirror as the road straightened out for a bit.

She was just in time to see the pickup, and not the semi only inches from their tailgate. Kim barely had time to get her eyes back onto the road as the SUV was jolted by the impact. If Ron hadn't warned her when he did, it would likely have caught up to them sooner.

It only took her a moment for it to register that the monster truck, and not the semi was attacking them. She had been so focused on the big truck that the smaller one simply did not register. Then it dawned on her that every time she had accelerated, the truck had done so as well, keeping itself between them and the semi.

Were they working as a team? Or were they just unlucky enough to have two completely different sets of bad guys after them.

If it had just been the two of them, and she wasn't heavily pregnant her next course of action would have been obvious. Kim Possible Stoppable wasn't one to run, she would take the baddies head on. Her foot would have come off the gas and she would have pulled right alongside the truck, blowing the passenger window out with her grappler, then following it into the cab to take out the driver. Just like…

…Kim flashed back to a time almost eleven years earlier. She had faced monster trucks then, and the ringleader of that particular band of nasties still held a grudge. Oh, it wasn't so much that she was responsible for sending him to prison, not once, but several times. No, the worst of it came because when he finally got convicted, he was sent to a prison where they exacted a punishment on him that was quite probably worse than death for him.

They cut off his beloved mullet.

She kept her foot down on the accelerator as they rounded a sharp curve, blessing the engineering skill of Wade for retaining the superior suspension qualities of their ride when he converted it to electric power. Miraculously, all four tires stayed in contact with the road as they sped through the turn. The needle bounced back up to one-hundred as the road straightened out.

Only this time they were headed into much hillier terrain. That was the big drawback of a flat map like their navigation system displayed. Curves were one thing. It never mentioned hills. They crested a rise at about one-ten, their tires finally leaving the pavement for just a moment.

Kim held her breath, trying to hold the wheel as rock-solid as she could until they were back down. Somehow she managed to keep the thing straight. Looking back, she growled under her breath, discovering that both their pursuers had managed to do the same.

"Ron, get on the Kimmunicator."

"It's just gonna be Joss."

"Don't care, just get her. Wade's checked her out on his system, she's better than nothing."

"Hey, Kim, what's the itch?" She laughed as the screen winked to life.

"Uh, ha-ha." Ron muttered.

"Ask her to run a search on the prisoner status of Edward Lipsky."

"Hold yer horses there for a minute, cousin." The younger Possible was nowhere near as quick as the man she was filling in for, but any port in a storm. "Got it. Says he was released six months ago for good behavior, but he's currently listed as wanting for skippin' out on his parole."

"Just great. So that means he's probably the one in the truck."

"Whoa! Yer tellin me ya got Motor Ed on your tail?"

Kim was ferociously glad the young woman hadn't said 'Spankin.' Several years spent as the lead field agent of Team Possible had done wonders for her professionalism, if not for her accent. "Looks like it. Have you got a GPS lock on us?"

"Yup. Had it runnin since I talked to ya yesterday."

"Okay, can you track the two vehicles behind us?"

"Lemme see. Okay, got a satellite lock on them."

"The semi should have a GPS antenna on it. Can you hack into it?"

"Uh. Hang in there Kim. Not like I'm the best at this kinda work. That's funny."

"What?"

"Like ya said, the truck's 'sposed to have a GPS antenna on it. That's federal law, but I'm not getting anything on it. If it wasn't for the visual I've got on it with the satellite…"

Kim glanced in the mirror again, only instead of seeing the two vehicles, she caught sight of three sets of eyes staring right back at her. Apparently, her driving had awakened the kids. They were either too excited or too scared to start screaming, for which she was thankful.

"They probably disabled it, whoever's driving that truck."

"Not just that, but they aren't broadcasting on anythin. No CB, no dispatch radio, I'm getting nothing on it, just like it was scrambled or something. If they were out of frame on the visual, I'd lose 'em completely. It's like their scrambling the signal or somethin."

"Everybody, hang on!" Kim shouted as she hit the brakes and cut the wheel. The SUV went sailing off the road, into the wet, muddy grass. Kim fought the wheel, trying to regain control as the vehicle spun around.

She hit the gas again, sending them rocketing back the other way. The Kimmunicator clattered to the floor as they sped along in the dirt. Ron spared a glance back, spotting the road-block that they had barely avoided. Half a dozen large men were waiting there, their monster trucks linked nose-to nose at a bottleneck, preventing them from getting past.

The only problem was they were then hurdling back in the direction of their pursuers, though off in the dirt. What was worse was that the truck, apparently driven by Motor Ed, was even better equipped than they were for off-roading. He simply veered into their path, coming at them head-on.

Kim cut the wheel again, sending up a spray of grass and mud as she headed for a gap in the trees. Their progress was slowed considerably, but at least they would lose the semi. There was no way in the world it would be able to follow them.

They weren't making good time on the narrow track. Perhaps at some distant point in the past it had been a dirt road, but the vegetation was just light enough they could charge through it. Every so often, she could feel the road-tires slipping, unable to get a proper purchase on the dirt, rock and battered down saplings.

They turned onto an honest dirt road, picking up speed just as the monster truck blasted through the woods behind them. It was quickly making up ground, it's wide, thickly studded tires much better suited for that particular type of terrain. Once more the grill, which was made to look like a giant fanged maw, roared up to their back window, slamming into their bumper.

Kim kept the SUV in control, but just barely. That was all it took for the kids to start losing it. CJ was first, letting loose what, under calmer conditions, Kim would have said sounded remarkably like her big brother when he was younger (though not quite as young as she was.) Little Gene was bouncing between thinking he was on some kind of amusement park ride and in utter terror. Ammie looked just as frightened, but if she was screaming, it couldn't be heard over the din the Stoppables were making.

Despite the wild bucking of their vehicle, Ron suddenly undid his harness, climbing between the two front seats toward the back. They went over an especially bad bump, slamming him into the roof, but he seemed unhurt. He climbed past the two girls, rooting around in their luggage for a moment.

"Ron! What on Earth!"

He climbed back into the front seats and held up his prize. It looked for all the world like a pistol, made completely of dark gray plastic. It wasn't a weapon, but a more advanced version of one of Team Possible's most useful pieces of equipment besides the Kimmunicator itself. Kim instantly realized what he was about to try.

"No way, Ron!"

"Somebody's got to do something. We can't keep this up." Another crash to their rear bumper punctuated his statement.

Kim swung them wide as the trail opened up, making a large U-turn, Ed's truck hot on their tail. As much as she hated to, she had to admit he was right. Still, it had been a very long time since either of them had tried anything like that. The most active thing he had done recently was to host a dinner party for a gathering of high-powered international businessmen at his restaurant.

Oddly enough, something like that could prove just as exciting as their current predicament.

Stuffing the Mark III grappler into his waist band, he turned to face her and pulled himself up through the open window. There was a complicated, tubular luggage rack on the roof, something she had wondered if they would ever use considering the internal cargo capacity of the oversized vehicle. At that moment she was glad it was actually there.

Kim knew many prayers, both from her faith and from Ron's, having gone to services for both for many years, even once entertaining the thought of converting to Judaism herself at one point before they got married. Just to be on the safe side, she silently said several of them as she lost sight of him as he climbed onto the roof.

She squared them up as best she could on the rough road, hoping there wouldn't be any more major bumps, at least until he tried what he was about to. There wasn't a tell-tale pop from the advanced device like in the old days, since it relied on a nearly silent magnetic rail assembly to cast the line.

On the ground, Ron Stoppable was always somewhat clumsy and ungainly, yet when he went into action, years of training at her side, coupled with other abilities he had acquired along the way, he was a study of grace. Back when they started out, a flying kick attack would have always ended up with him being embarrassed, or worse.

Kim turned off to the side and slammed on the brakes when she heard the crash. Moments later the monster truck veered off the gravel road, up and embankment, then finally slammed into a tree. It wasn't like in the movies when a wrecked vehicle burst into a great fireball, there was only a blast of steam as the radiator was fractured by the impact.

She set the brake, and piled out the door, hoping the kids had enough sense to stay in the SUV. She dropped into her familiar fighting stance, though she prayed she wouldn't need it, but if it came down to protecting the little ones with her, she would do anything.

Ron had done precisely what she would have if she wasn't in her condition. He had sailed into the cab through the passenger window, which fortunately, like his, was open. The reason the truck had lost control and crashed was instantly apparent.

A few hundred yards back, a large, blonde-haired man was struggling on the ground with a much smaller one. They had gone out the driver's side door, onto the side of the dirt track.

Ed got to his feet first, backing away from his opponent. "Man, you seriously cashed my ride…seriously!"

Ron sprang to his feet. In the past, he was always ready with some kind of response. Only this time, not only had Kim been threatened, but his children as well. There were no smart-mouthed quips, no jokes for that situation. All that mattered was that the threat was eliminated.

Ed seemed to sense this. He slowly backed away from the silent warrior stalking him. "Come on, Little skinny bro. No harm, no foul." He spared a glance at Kim. "Whoa! Didn't know you had Red all knocked up, seriously!"

Ron looked like he was about to attack, when a roaring sound announced the presence of something else on the road.

"No way!" Kim shrieked as the hulking machine bore down on the two combatants.

The black semi ground to a halt not twenty feet away from them. The wheels had somehow grown to twice their size, the whole vehicle sitting on some kind of extendable suspension. It was as if the builder of that truck had foreseen just that sort of circumstance.

The roof of the sleeper-cab popped open, revealing a huge weapon of some sort. The muzzle turned directly at the pair on the side of the road.

"Put your hands up." A no-nonsense voice ordered over a loudspeaker.

"S'ha! He did it!" Ed said, pointing at Ron, who just glared and growled.

"Edward Lipsky, you are under arrest." The voice repeated.

Kim almost blurted 'no way' again when she recognized the controlled, precise voice of the speaker. She was simply too shocked to do so.

Doors on either side of the cab sprung open, disgorging four well-armed men in blue-gray jumpsuits. In half an instant, Motor Ed was handcuffed and being led away.

"Man, this is so rank. I just wanted to play tag with Red and her skinny dude."

"Tell it to your parole officer, Lipsky." Said a golden skinned man as he climbed down from the cab of the modified semi.

Kim slowly rose from her crouch. She didn't know whether she wanted to kiss or slug the man as he approached them.

"Will Du." She finally said through clenched teeth. "You've been following us all this time?"

"Yes and no, Kimberly. In fact I was detailed to keep tabs on you as you made your trip. Doctor Director has had a protective detail near you for the last several years, especially since you have retired from active duty."

Her eyes narrowed. "Do you know how much you had me worried? I thought you were the one trying to catch us back there."

He allowed a slight, smug smile. "That was not our intention. It was only when we intercepted a radio transmission from Mr. Lipsky to the rest of his team that we realized they were setting a trap for you." He nodded back in the direction of the main road. "Perhaps if you had stayed on the main highway, he would not have had his opportunity."

Kim shot a glare at Ron, who just smiled sheepishly. He finally shrugged. "Hey, I thought it would save time."

At that moment, he just simply fell over.

Kim rushed to his side. "Ron! What's wrong? Ron!"

She tried to shake him, but there was no response.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kim Possible and all related characters © Disney


	9. Chapter 9

**_Cross Country_: Chapter 9**

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Ron!" Kim shook his shoulders roughly as he lay in the mud and gravel, unmoving.

"Did he faint again?" Will Du asked, standing over them.

"He doesn't do that any…" She stopped herself, realizing he didn't faint any more because they didn't get themselves into this sort of thing any more. The last time he fainted was when she came out of the bathroom some six months earlier and showed him the test. Then it had been from an overload of joy, since they were trying to have a second child.

She tried furiously to think what might have caused him to black out. The first thing that came to mind was the combination of the old-style antihistamine combined with a massive adrenaline surge. That would make sense, and if that were the case, he would probably be bests served letting him sleep it off.

That's when Kim noticed the blood on her hand.

It was slowly soaking through his shirt, not immediately visible because the garment was already dark red, and the hesitant rain already had it partially soaked. The color was only faint on her hand, and was rapidly being rinses away as the mist turned into an honest downpour.

"What did you do?" She screamed at Motor Ed.

"Whoa, Red! Me an your little hubby bro just scrapped, mono-a-mono. Fair fight n everything, seriously."

Kim sprung to her feet, sailing over Ron's prone form and landing right in front of the large man. "Do you know what you've put me through? This is a new low, even for a…" She stopped herself. She almost said Lipsky, but realized just how that might sound to Amethyst. She didn't even know if the girl knew the mechaniaical genius was her second cousin, by marriage and adoption. "…for a bad man like you. Don't you realize there are small children in my car? You might not have known I was pregnant, and if you were just going after me I'd say bring it on, but when you try to hurt my family?"

"I just wanted to scare you a little, you know, payback for what you did to the do."

Kim put her hand on her hip, glaring at him. If he was concerned about his stupid hair, it had long ago grown back down to his shoulders in the back. "You mean to tell me, you would endanger the lives of my four-year-old son, my little sister-in-law and your own cousin just to get back at me because a warden made you cut off that ferociously stupid mullet?"

"Nobody messes with THE MULLET! Seriously!" Ed screamed, straining against the two large agents holding him by his cuffed hands.

What happened next, Kim would later put down to a lapse in her usual calm, most likely brought on by the stress of the sitch, as well as her out-of-control hormones. All of that aside, it felt really, really good.

That is, except for her bruised knuckles. Ed's face felt like it was made of solid granite. It had to be, to take some of the punishment she had dealt him in the past. She stood there for a moment, shaking her hand, wishing she had a pair of her old leather gloves on at the time. That certainly would have taken some of the sting out of the punch.

She looked at the two agents, who in turn looked toward their superior, who was kneeling beside the still-unconscious Ron. Kim realized that technically they would be within their rights to arrest her for assaulting a bound prisoner. In fact, it would be their duty to do so.

Will Du just shook his head, and the two led the fuming prisoner away, she assumed to a clearing large enough to land a hoverjet. Then she saw him do something that she had been taught one never did with an injured person. He turned Ron over.

"Agent Johnson and Agent Johnson! Get on the communicator and get a med-evac in here stat!"

A slight gasp escaped Kim's lips when she saw what Will had found. A large sliver of wood was sticking out of Ron's back, just below the left shoulder. That was wear the blood had come from. He probably got it when he tumbled from the speeding monster truck. She felt the gravel dig into her own knees as she skidded to a stop alongside her husband.

There was no telling how deep the wound was. The piece of wood that was visible was about an inch across, and only the fact that it was not bleeding profusely gave her hope that nothing critical had been hit. Then again, it could have punctured a lung if it had slipped between his ribs.

Du put an ear to Ron's face. "He's stopped breathing!"

"Ron!" Kim screamed. She grabbed both sides of his face, shaking him. In that instant she was so rattled she didn't even think to start mouth-to-mouth. "Ron." She was sure she was crying, though the tears were lost in the rain pouring around her face.

Will Du might have been a bigger buffoon in her eyes than her husband could ever be, but he was still professional enough to realize that she was at that point incapable of handling the situation. He took a deep breath, cleared Ron's throat, pinched his nose and blew deeply into this mouth.

"Come on, Stoppable, breath." He said between breaths, waiting for his chest to fall.

Kim put her ear on his chest. His heart was still beating, why didn't he breath?

Will kept up the mouth-to-mouth, hoping beyond hope what was supposed to be a simple collar would not turn into a murder arrest. That would mean so much more paperwork, so many questions and worst of all, that would mean he had failed in his mission to protect the people he secretly admired a great deal.

"Kim?"

She realized a hand was on her shoulder. She looked up for a second to see Amethyst standing there, reaching for Ron.

"Not now, Ammie." She croaked, watching helplessly as Du tried to revive the man she had loved for what seemed like her entire life.

"Aunt Kim, I can help."

She didn't look up that time, simply pointing toward the SUV. "Go get back in the car now!" She screamed.

The hand on her shoulder suddenly gripped her much harder, far harder than she would have thought such a small eight-year-old capable of. "I can help him!" She screamed back.

"Get away!" Kim looked up at her, her own fists balling up.

There was a sudden surge of green light. Every time in the past Amethyst had used her power to mimic her mother's, it had a purple glow. In fact, she never really had any of her mother's ability, it was only the distinctly different powers she had inherited from her biological father that let him mimic them so completely.

Kim suddenly found herself sitting on her backside, about two yards away from her stricken husband. She saw the green glow surrounding the girl's fists wink out, replaced with the more familiar soft purple glow. She opened her hands and placed them on her godfather's chest, the light spreading from them as she went to work.

Du stopped, sitting back on his haunches in wonder, watching as the little girl, who he knew very well to be the daughter of Shego, do whatever it was she was trying to with the slightly smaller man. The glow spread until it encompassed all of his upper body.

Amethyst did not know all that much about medical science, but she did not have to. The way her power worked, she instinctively understood what the damage was. She could sense the sliver piercing his lung. She could feel the blood pooling in there. It was taking more power than she had ever used to heal him, even more than the time she healed GJ's head injury.

She also knew that her secret was finally out, but Ron was indeed like a very much beloved uncle to her. At that point she no longer cared. His life was worth so much more than the secret. Even so, she was scared what would come next. If it had only been her family that learned of it, then it would be safe, but there were others there, other people who were aware of people with special abilities like hers who would be duty-bound to study her, to make the most of her hidden talents.

Ron's life was far more important with that. It was a decision no eight-year-old was supposed to have to make, but there was no way she could simply sit by and let him die, especially not after saving them the way he did.

"Pull it out." She ordered, keeping her eyes closed.

"What?" Du blinked twice at the girl.

"The thing in his back, pull it out!" She opened her blue eyes and locked them on the Asian man's black ones.

"He might bleed to death."

"I can't finish healing him with it there. You have to pull it out!"

Du grimaced slightly, then turned the blonde-haired man back onto his side. He got a good hold on the sliver and tugged. It wouldn't move."

"It must be jammed between his ribs."

Amethyst concentrated harder. The man was right, the piece of wood was wedged hard between them. She had to try something she had never done before. It was one thing to repair damage, it was quite another to make healthy tissue bend to her will. The bones were not broken, but she could not save him until the object was gone. Stretching her power like she never had before, she starting trying to reshape some of the muscles and sinew, just enough for the pressure on the wood to be released.

"Try again." She pleaded.

Du put both hands on the sliver and pulled. It seemed to shift slightly, but remained pinned. Amethyst scrunched her eyes closed once more. There was only so much she could do to reshape the bone. It was almost like there was some special limit on her power that she could only affect something that was actually wrong. She didn't know why it was that way, but it was. She could not make the old young, nor could she revive anything that was dead. She had always had fantasies that she could take a golden-winged monarch butterfly and change its wings to purple, but it never worked.

Putting his foot in the middle of Ron's back, Will Du gave the sliver one more pull. He fell backwards as it came free, covered in blood. Ron slumped over onto his back, with only the little girl there, her hands still on his chest. The purple light turned to fire, spreading all across his body, but still concentrating on the part where the most damage was. The flames also crept up her arms and her face showed the strain she was under. She knew she would be tired, possibly in pain herself once this was over, but if there was going to be any good to come from the gifts her parents had given her, this was going to be it.

Ron spasmed suddenly, taking a single choking breath. He sputtered and coughed as his chest started going up and down on its own once more. Spent, Amethyst simply slumped over onto him, the fire winking out like it had never been there.

Kim finally got her wits back and scrambled across the wet ground to the trio. Du was still sitting with the chunk of wood in his hands, the blood rapidly washing away in the rain. Both of them gaped in amazement as Ron opened his eyes, sitting up slightly, as if he was wondering why his god-child was lying unconscious across his chest.

With extreme care, Kim picked the little girl up, cradling her in her arms. She wasn't quite sure what had just happened, but she somehow knew the child had just saved Ron's life. How many other times had the child done something like that?

Du helped Ron sit up. He kept blinking in confusion, not knowing why he was lying in the mud. "Whu, what happened?"

Will Du put the sliver into his hands. It looked so small, so insignificant like that, only being about three inches long. The older man just smiled at him. "Mr. Stoppable, I believe you fainted on us again."

Kim smiled softly as she carried Amethyst back to the SUV. CJ and little Gene had their faces pressed up against the windows, watching as she carefully opened the rear door and laid her down on the seat. CJ quickly climbed into the middle with her nephew, making room for her.

Ron got unsteadily to his feet. "Man, have I ever got a headache. Last thing I remember I was grabbing Ed in his truck." He glanced up the embankment, where the wrecked truck sat. The steam had finally stopped pouring from the ruined engine block." His balance returned quickly as he walked back to his vehicle, checking the damage to the rear.

The external covering of the bumper was smashed and the back gate was slightly dented, but the SUV was otherwise okay. If they had been in either of their other cars, the huge truck would have just rolled right over them, then come back for more.

Kim walked right up to Will Du. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"You know what I mean, Agent Du."

"I'm afraid I don't, Kimberly. All I know is that I've got a lot of work to do here. We have to get Lipsky to a secure holding cell, we have to get some equipment back here to recover his assault vehicle, and we have to process the members of his gang. That will be the most difficult, since at the moment, until we can more directly link them with Lipsky, all they seem guilty of is impeding a state highway."

"Listen, don't play game with me, Du. I know what we saw, what you and your men just saw."

"What my men just saw was Mr. Stoppable pass out following combat with a wanted felon, then one of the children in his care do the same due to the stress of the situation. That is all that happened here today."

"Come off it, Du. I know you better than that. You've got to report this to Dr. Director, who in turn is going to report it to somebody else, who's going to order her to send her scientists to…"

"Kimberly, I'm going to tell you this just once. Shut up."

"What?"

"I said shut up. We have known about young Miss Lipsky's abilities for some time. After all, she nearly destroyed a pre-school when she was only three years old. We have also suspected she had this particular power for some time. If we wished to interfere with her life, we would have done so long ago. As it stands, she is not my mission, and as such, I do not care. As for my men, they all work for me and they will follow my orders to the letter. If that includes ordering them to forget what they have seen, then that is exactly what they will do. That's part and parcel of them being professionals like myself. They do their jobs. That alone is why the two of us have never seen eye-to-eye. You always have to do your own thing, no matter what your original objective is. There is a proper time for thinking outside the box, and frankly, you are one of the best in the world at doing so, but there is also a time to stick to the plan. My orders were simple; keep you and your family from coming to harm."

Kim's hand went to her mouth, realization hitting her like a thunderbolt. "You almost screwed up."

"What are you talking about, Mrs. Stoppable?"

"Ron almost got killed, and if he had, you would have been the one on the spot for it. You messed up and now you want us to be quiet if you stay quiet. You smug son-of-a… You don't care about that little girl back there. All you care about is your career and getting back your status as the number one agent at Global Justice."

"If it helps you to think that way, then very well. Good day, Mrs. Stoppable. Have a good time at the wedding tomorrow." With that, he turned and walked back to the modified Semi. Of the two agents leading Motor Ed away, there was no sign. She wasn't sure, but she thought she saw the man give her a slight salute as the vehicle backed up and turned around.

"KP, what just happened? And why is Ammie passed out in the back of the truck?"

She turned around and met his chocolate brown eyes. Suddenly all the anger and frustration she was feeling was washed away. Her arms wrapped around him, holding him tight at she kissed him. They stayed that way for a couple minutes until she quickly pulled away, putting her hand on her belly.

"Kim? Is something wrong?"

She looked back up at him, smiling. "No, not at all. Just think a little someone has her own little kung-fu dojo inside of me."

"Oh, Jean Anne kicking again?" he smiled with her. They had long ago settled on the names for their children, even before they were even engaged. Their first son would get their grandfather's first names, and thusly their first daughter would get their grandmother's. It was just a fortunate happenstance that they had a boy and had known for months the second would be a little girl.

She reached out and took his hand, realizing finally they were standing out in the rain. Later that night, once they were alone, she would explain what it was Amethyst had done that morning. For the time being they somehow needed to get out of their wet things and get back on the road, even if that meant the kids having to cover their eyes while the adults changed. Kim would change the young girl herself.

"Come on, Ronnie. We've still got a lot of road to cover." They slowly walked back to the SUV, climbing in. Kim made her way to the back, carefully climbing over Amethyst, who was simply sound asleep. More started dawning on Kim. Maybe that was why she sometimes was so hard to get out of bed. She had been using her powers in secret, leaving her utterly exhausted. That was against the rules, but there was no way she was going to punish the girl, not after saving Ron's life like that. Oh, there was going to be a long talking-to when they got back to Middleton, but that's all there was going to be.

Ron's features scrunched up as he struggled into a fresh pair of boxers in the front seat. He glanced backwards, hearing giggles coming from his sister, but she still had her hands firmly clamped over her eyes.

"What's the matter?" Kim asked, wriggling into a dry bra under her old cream-yellow peasant top. It was one of the few regular shirts she was still able to wear, though it was quite snug across the middle.

"Well, it's what's not the matter." He pulled open the band, looking down. "Remember the rash I had this morning at breakfast?"

"Let me guess. It's gone, isn't it?"

"Yeah, I mean gone-gone. I can see the rash itself clearing up, but I should have some good old scratches that should have taken a while longer to clear up."

Kim looked back over her shoulder at the little girl snoring in the back seat. She was wearing a dark purple tank top and violet jeans, her soaked purple and black 'team-go-esque' jumper thrown into the back with the rest of the wet, muddy clothes. She had muttered about being very hungry while Kim changed her, only falling back into a deep sleep by the time she got her hair fairly toweled off.

"Ron, I have a sneaking suspicion about why my own rash cleared up so fast." She leaned over toward him as she powered up the SUV, giving him a quick kiss. "I'm so ferociously sorry I gave that rash to you. Guess I wasn't thinking too well."

He gave her one of his trademark goofy grins. "Considering how I got it, it was worth it, if you know what I mean."

"Yes, it was." She smiled as well, putting the vehicle in gear.

Ten minutes later, as they carefully picked their way back up the rough gravel road, she grimaced slightly. "Damn."

"What now, KP?"

"It's happening again."

"What?"

"The bumpy road, the coffee and OJ I had at breakfast…"

"Oh. Wanna pull over? It's not raining so bad now."

Kim looked over at her beloved husband. "I don't care if it's a hundred miles to the next rest stop, I am so not going behind a tree ever again."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kim Possible and all related characters © Disney


	10. Chapter 10

**_Cross Country_: Chapter 10**

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Ron had first brought their new SUV home the night before their trip began, it had the typical 'New Car' smell – an admixture of the chemicals used to treat the carpets, the glues holding it down and the various other plastic and leather smells, all coming together to tell the senses "I am new." Kim often wondered if that was just something the dealers would actually mist around the inside of a new vehicle, but there never was any real proof. One company had even marketed something called "That New Car Smell" but it was really just some over-sweet deodorizing spray.

After two and a half days of hauling five people from Colorado to North Carolina, the Glissade now longer had that pleasant, indistinct odor. Instead, it was starting to get ripe enough that Kim was about to order Ron to turn off at the next exit and find a store, any store be it a tiny family-run general store or a freaking Smarty Mart, she was going to run in and buy a bottle of that fabric spray that was supposed to destroy odors and hose down the inside of the once-luxurious vehicle.

It didn't help that they stopped from lunch at a Bueno Nacho. It wasn't her first choice, but that was where Amethyst wanted to eat, and they were not about to deny her choice that mid-day. The slight little girl managed to put away a mountain of food that shouldn't have fit into her tiny body. It was a good thing the Stoppable family never had to pay at the Tex-Mex eatery, or she would have put a pretty good dent in their travel budget (despite being 'comfortable', they always set a limit on what they would spend while away.)

CJ just watched with her eyes bugged out as her normally quiet and polite roommate basically ate her way through the entire menu board, something she had only seen her older brother do (and only when his wife was not around.)

Amethyst, and the quantity and variety of food she consumed, was not the problem, however. Considering the nature of her power, she was not prone to getting the belly flips, or any of the other unpleasant side-effects of the spicy, bean laden food. She simply curled up in the back seat and napped once more, snuggling what, at one time, had been an immensely valuable 'Super-Star Edition' Pandaroo, but was now just a ragged shadow of a plush doll.

No, the problem was that the two male humans and one male non-human in the SUV had gotten into a Chimirito eating contest – a bean filled Chimirito eating contest. Kim had been so busy staring at her god-daughter packing away Nacos and Mucho Caliente Cheesidillas that she failed to notice the boys eating such potentially explosive foods.

Thirty minutes down the highway, another type of competition started, one that only males would think of and enjoy. It got so bad it even woke up Ammie, who looked like she was about to throw up, possibly for the first time in her young life.

"Ron! That is just…man. Please, for the sake of my nose, for all our noses, roll down your window. For that matter, roll down all the windows and keep the AC cranked up all the way." At least they weren't burning extra gas that way.

With his trademark 'lil Diablo' grin, GJ responded to the audible (and fragrant) challenge issued by his father, making Kim wish the boy was actually still in diapers.

"Excuse you." She admonished, her eyes open in surprise.

Grinning from ear-to-ear, Ron rocked slightly to the side and issued his rebuttal. Kim simply clamped her hands over her mouth and nose. "Please, the two of you, just stop."

It wasn't his voice GJ used to answer his mother, and, if all that wasn't bad enough, Rufus emerged from his nap-spot under the seat and joined in the fray.

"I'm gonna be sick." CJ complained, scooting as far away from her nephew as possible. He let a whiner and she wasted no time scrambling over the back of the seat to where Ammie had been trying to nap.

"The next one who passes gas in here is going to finish our ride strapped to the luggage rack, and that includes you, Ronald Eugene Stoppable." She jabbed a small index finger his direction. He didn't respond, except to look back at his son, reflecting the each other's smiles.

The mist and rain had been left behind in the mountains, the sun appearing once they were properly out in the open. The only problem was they had not counted on how humid the southeast could be. The temperature was in the low nineties, just as it was expected to be back home, but the moist, warm air was like a sauna to them. It wasn't long before the windows were rolled back up, letting the powerful air conditioning of their SUV cool them back down.

Just as the cabin started getting comfortable once more, Kim's nose suddenly wrinkled up. Seconds later, she had her hands clamped over it again. "Oh my God, who did that?"

Ron seemed to sag down in the driver's seat, a distinct look of utter relief on his face. "Sorry, KP."

"That's it. Vacation rules are suspended. No more BN, no more beans, no more heart-attack-on-a-plate breakfasts. We're eating good, healthy food from here on out."

GJ chimed in, "Beans, beans, they're good for your heart, the more you eat, the more you…"

"Gene!" Kim shrieked. That only served to him off laughing again, which in turn gave him a opportunity for a few 'cheek-sneaks' to relieve his own growing pressure. "Ron, you and _your_ son are doing way more damage to the trade-in value of this thing than Motor Ed did. You can fix a bumper, I don't think we're ever going to get this smell out of here."

He rolled down his window to let in another blast of humid, yet fresher air inside. Only this time it backfired. Something else was carried on that moist, warm air. Something fouler than the effluvia being produced by the two males and one mole rat. It turned all six of them greener than Amethyst's mother when she was using her powers.

The full force of the odor didn't last terribly long, though it seemed to linger, even with all four windows open once more. "Gah! What was that?" Ron asked, waving his hand in front of his nose.

Ammie leaned over the back of the middle seat. "I think it might have been a hog farm. I was reading an online article on North Carolina last night, and they're supposed to be one of the largest pork-producing states in the country."

Ron glanced at the girl in the rearview mirror, then at his sister, who had a somewhat smug look on her face. "That came from pigs?"

The young brunette wrinkled her own nose again. "Might be a hog-pond. Trust me, you don't want to know."

Kim was doing her best to keep her own lunch down, which was a feat unto itself considering how easily she could get nauseated while pregnant. She reached over and put a reassuring hand on her husband's upper leg.

"Maybe there's something to all that kosher stuff anyway. The whole point is that swine is supposed to be…unclean. I always thought it was just a cultural response to those trick-a, er tri…"

"Trichinosis." Kim supplied.

"Yeah, that. At least that's what my professors all tried to say, but if that's what they smell like, ug…and here I was looking forward to some North Carolina-style barbecue while we're here."

"Pew, traife." Rufus squeaked from his perch on Ron's shoulder.

Kim gave his leg a good squeeze. "I think all it will take will be a good whiff of hickory-smoke and you'll change your mind right back, especially since that's what Moni said we're having at the rehearsal dinner tonight." Her eyes drifted to the back once more, as GJ emitted another sound that made the condition of his briefs suspect.

"Excuse me." He said, stifling a giggle.

"I know I'm going to really get if for asking this," Kim said, sitting back in her seat, "but are we almost there? I am so done with sitting like this. I need to stretch my legs, not to mention getting some breathable air."

"Here's our exit." Ron proclaimed happily. "Welcome to the mighty metropolis of Durham, North Carolina, home of the Duke Blue-devils!"

"He said Dookie!" GJ squealed, giggling playfully in his booster seat.

"No, he said…oh, never mind." Kim was too relieved to correct the boy, considering that was exactly what Ron would call the team's basketball team when they regularly slaughtered the Middleton College team in their annual meeting.

The navigation system had once more recommended a direct route using state highways, not far from the multi-interstate junction in Greensboro, NC, but given their experiences over the last couple days, they elected to stay on Interstate 40 all the way to the city. It added a few more miles to the trip, but neither of them were complaining about the extra time.

The area reminded them of their home, though it was a little less hilly. There were no mountains in the distance, though they were just as close to them as they were in Middleton. It was just that the Appalachians were so much smaller than the more-familiar Rockies. Durham was butted up against several other cities, including Raleigh, the state capitol, much the way Middleton was nearly joined with Upperton and Lowerton. In fact, the city was actually divided from Chapel Hill pretty much by the interstate itself.

Monique Jenkins and her fiancé Felix Renton had a small house not terribly far from the Duke University campus. She had rented an apartment during her Junior year and opted to make her living there rather than move back to Middleton after she graduated. At twenty-seven, she was already a fairly high-ranking executive with Club Banana, serving both as a regional manager and as a fashion consultant.

Felix had moved down there with her from Massachusetts after graduating from M.I.T., following in his mother's footsteps working on a doctorate in robotics while working as a junior scientist for a Research Triangle firm. Just like Kim and Ron, they remained engaged for quite a long time, with him popping the question during their senior year.

Kim thought it funny that they were one of the last couples to actually tie the knot. With them hitched, that left Hope as the only one, though it didn't seem likely she was going to follow that road any time soon. Of all the former cheerleaders, she was the only one who had a very dim view on the whole prospect of marriage, and it didn't seem that it was because she had not met the right guy yet, though she did hold out hope her friend would eventually change her mind. Most of them had found real happiness in their relationships.

She didn't expect to see very many of her other friends at the wedding. In reality, only Felix's mother and herself were Monique's real remaining ties with Middleton. Not long after it became apparent she would be living on the east coast permanently, her father was transferred once more. She also wasn't as close to the rest of them as Kim was and it had actually been a couple years since they had seen each other face-to-face, though they did spend quite a bit of time talking over a video-phone hookup. With a sigh, Kim realized that sometimes growing up really did mean growing apart, though it was a bit ironic that it ended up being her and Monique doing that rather than her and Ron.

After a couple wrong turns, which could easily be forgiven since neither of them had ever set foot in the city before, they finally found their way to the modest home. Once they were on the cul-de-sac, it wasn't hard to figure out which house it was, considering the number of cars parked there.

Monique must have been sitting by the window waiting for them, since she rushed right out of the house before they could even get GJ out of his car-seat. Growing up apparently also meant cutting her hair, as it no longer hung past her shoulders, though she still had little curly ringlets hanging in front of her ears.

She rushed right up to Kim, wrapping her up in a ferocious hug.

"Look at you, girl, you are AH!"

Kim simply inclined one of her eyebrows, not always knowing what her friend meant with her acronyms.

"You are absolutely huge." She looked down at Kim's belly, still holding onto her shoulders.

She smiled at her friend, knowing that, at least between women, such a comment was actually a compliment when directed at a pregnant woman. She looked down at her friend, noticing a certain tell-tale bulge as well.

"I could say the same thing about you, Moni! You never told me you were expecting."

Monique finally let her friend go. "Yeah. I've still got three months to go. That's why we moved the wedding up. Turned out the doctor said my due date was exactly the day we planned on getting married this fall. What about you, girlfriend?"

"Two months to go." She put a hand on her belly. "So, dish, what's it going to be, a boy or a girl?"

"Don't know. Oh, they've done all the tests, but Felix is wanting to be old-fashioned about it so we won't know until it comes."

Kim gave her friend a quick visual appraisal. "Hmmm. Seems like you're carrying it all out front. Looks to me like you're going to have a little boy."

"Shush, girl. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard that, well, let's just say I'd be driving a swanky ride like the two of you have. Speaking of Naco money, where's the world's second best kisser?"

As if on cue, Ron came from around the big vehicle carrying his son in his arms. Monique quickly moved in for a hug, surprising him with a warm, though still platonic, kiss on the lips. "See, I told you, that boy knows what he's doing."

"Good to see you too, Monique." He set his son down, who regarded the dark skinned woman with a little distrust.

"Look at you. Last time I saw you, you were nothing more than a little tiny thing in diapers. Come give your Aunt Monique a hug, Little Gene."

Kim and Ron both laughed heartily as the little boy tried to escape her embrace. She followed it up with a quick pinch of his cheeks, making him almost scream to get away. He went and hid behind his father's leg, eyeing the African-American beauty warily.

"Still can't believe the two of you drove all this way."

"Neither can I." Kim said dryly.

"You're late.' Another voice called out. They all turned as Felix rolled up in his wheelchair. They had expected to hear him coming, but instead of the fancy cyber-robotic chair his mother built for him when he was a teenager, he was in a simple, though very hi-tech in its own right, hand-powered chair.

"My man Felix!" Ron gave his MBF a high-five. "We'd have been here sooner, but you know us, we had to stop in West Virginia and deal with an old friend of yours."

"S'ha, right. More like you and Kim had to stop at every motel along the way, if I know the two of you. News flash for you, Stoppable, you can't get her any more pregnant than she already is."

Ron actually blushed. "Hey, looks like I'm not the only one." He nodded toward Monique.

"Yeah, what can I say. Come on, Dude, I've got an advance copy of Steel Toe Cyber slam VI in the console. You up for some primo gamage?"

"Badical! You're going down."

"So not, you're the one going down. I know for a fact there aren't any cheat-codes out for this one yet."

Kim shook her head as the two of them headed into the house.

"Not gonna go all gell on us, are you?" Monique asked, putting her arm around her old friend. "You know we're going to have to cut off the power when it's time to go to the rehearsal later."

"It's no big. He's been looking forward to hooking up with Felix for weeks now. Just don't tell him that Ron's already had Wade hack the game for him." She turned to the kids. "Why don't you girls go in the house and see if there are any more kids you can play with. Gene, you go with them."

"Don wanna." He whined, latching onto his mother's leg.

"Go on, Gene. Aunt Moni and I have a lot of catching up to do.

He pouted, but Kim simply extracted his hand from her leg. Ammie took his hand and led him toward the house.

Monique shook her head. "Hard to believe that's actually Shego's daughter."

"Sometimes. There's a lot more to that little girl than meets the eye. So, what's up?"

"Want all the juicy details?"

"Please and thank you."

Monique led her to a small car. "Ack, not more driving."

"It's just a few minutes. They don't have everything in walking distance like you're used to in Middleton. If you want to get anywhere, you've got to drive." They both climbed into the car, Kim realizing it was the same small hatchback her friend had owned since high school. She glanced over her shoulder, trying to think how she managed to make out with Ron in the tiny back seat.

"Please tell me you're staying with us tonight."

"Well, we've already got a room at the Best Western."

"Please, Kim. I don't know if I can take too much more. If you and Ron have the spare room and the kids are sacked out in the den, that means I won't have to put up with Mama Renton tonight. Do you know what it's like when she's here with that beau of hers?"

"Don't tell me she's still with Dr. Freeman."

Monique rolled her eyes. "God yes. You would think that guy has no use for women, but the two of them, carrying on like that at their age."

"Hey, Ron and I do our own 'carryin on' thank you very much."

"Not the same thing, girlfriend. We're all the same age, and knowing the woman who's going to be your mother-in-law in less than twenty-four hours."

"I'll ask Ron, but you know that's going to mean the two of them are going to be glued to that game console until the wee hours of the morning."

"One step ahead of you there. Felix is staying at a friend's tonight, just so he won't see me before the wedding. Told you he could be a little old-fashioned."

Kim glanced at her friend's belly. "Not all that old-fashioned, it seems."

Monique laughed. "More like I had something to do with that. Still got it goin-on, ya know."

"What's with this." She touched her much shorter-than-expected hair.

"Eh, got tired of messing with it, especially when I really started getting big. Thought by now you'd have gone that route too."

Kim tossed her hair. It was halfway down her back, bundled in a loose ponytail at the base of her neck. "Actually, I got it cut a couple weeks ago. It was all the way down to my butt and I was getting ferocious split-ends."

"I mean really getting it cut."

"So not. If she wasn't three inches taller, people would already be having a hard time telling me apart from my Mom. Hope I look that good when I'm in my fifties."

They needn't have worried about prying Felix and Ron away from their games. Hours later it took a cell-phone call to drag them back for the afternoon's events.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ron sat down on the bed, quickly undoing the bow-tie that had encircled his neck for the better part of the day. Despite his slim nature, he always felt like he was choking to death whenever he had a tie on, to the point he actually wore a chef's jacket to most of his business meetings involving his restaurant. His short tenure as a district manager for Bueno Nacho had been real torture for him, requiring a real tie be worn, rather than the short clip-on the managers and their assistants wore for quick removal in case of a grease fire.

He didn't complain, though. As Best Man, he was expected to wear one, and he always came through for his friends. At least he didn't have to wear what Kim did in her position as Matron-of-honor.

She was busily changing out of the bright-red taffeta dress. It was actually the third time she had been forced to wear one of the things, though the first when she had to do so seven months pregnant. "You would think a woman who is a qualified and respected fashion designer would have had us wear something that was actually…pretty." She fussed as she stepped out of the crimson horror.

"At least it wasn't like that southern-belle thing you had to wear at Tara's wedding." He commented.

Kim frowned. She didn't get a chance to speak to her old fellow cheerleader, who simply showed up with the rest of the guests and departed before the reception. Tara still lived in Middleton, but she rarely got a chance to see her, especially once the divorce went through. What had once seemed like yet-another fairy-tale romance quickly went sour, leaving the normally bubbly blonde a wreck of her former self.

To think there might have been an outside possibility she would have married Josh Mankey herself if they had not drifted apart back in high school. She never got the details, but she suspected one or the other of them might not have been completely faithful. That line of thinking gave her pause. It wasn't that there was any real possibility of Ron or herself ever taking that path, but a rational person did sometimes have to consider it.

That was the only bad spot in what was otherwise a beautiful wedding. She was certain some tongues were wagging at the fact Monique wore a white gown she had designed herself, but she didn't care. She had lived with Ron for more than a year before their own wedding and wore white herself, though she didn't end up expecting until several months after the ceremony.

Felix surprised everyone when he entered the church. Multiple Sclerosis had robbed him of his ability to walk when he was a pre-teen, trapping him in a chair seemingly for the rest of his life. Yet, for his wedding day, the doors opened with him standing with the aid of crutches, Ron close at hand to help him if needed. It took longer than if he had used his chair, but he made it to the front of the old Baptist church on his own power. There was even applause when he finally got there.

Exhausted, he was back in his chair for the reception. His new wife spent the greater part of that party in his lap, her arms wrapped around his shoulder.

Another seeming miracle occurred that day. Somehow all three kids managed to behave themselves, though Ammie was a little put-out that CJ got to be the flower girl since Monique really didn't know the little girl all that well. Little Gene looked like a consummate gentleman in his tiny tux, bearing the rings on a little pillow made of the same fabric as the traditionally detestable bridesmaid dresses.

Kim didn't know the other two girls in the service, hammering home the fact that the old friends had really gone their separate ways after high school. Of course she couldn't be jealous that Monique made other friends while she was in college and beyond, but it did cause a pang of nostalgia.

"Think Monique and Felix are enjoying themselves?" Ron asked as he undid the frilly top of his tuxedo shirt.

"Oh, they're still on the plane, honey." Kim slipped on a nice travel dress, buttoning it up the front.

"Just hope they like it. Feels good returning the favor like that."

The newlyweds were on their way to a tiny island in the Caribbean, where the two of them had spent their own honeymoon just over five years earlier. Not only that, they were going to be staying in the same room, and Ron had given Felix secret instructions how to find the secluded waterfall with its pristine swimming hole. The trip was their gift to them, in return for the room they had gotten the still-seventeen year-old couple after the senior prom.

Kim sat down beside him, putting her hand on the small of his back. "Ronnie, how much do you love me?" She nuzzled his neck softly.

"You don't even have to ask. I'm running out of new ways to say it."

"I want you to do something for me." She took his earlobe gently in her teeth, tugging on it slightly.

"Uh, KP, you do know we've got to get on the road before long. We've got over eighteen-hundred miles to cover."

"But Ronnie, I want something from you. I need something from you, if you know what I mean." She sat back, the pout just starting to take shape on her face.

"You mean you're not worn out after last night? The way Monique looked at us at breakfast this morning…"

Kim got up, laughing. "Not what I meant, though if you really wanted to… anyway, I was thinking, there's a major airport here. How much do you think it would cost to have the Glissade shipped back to Middleton?"

"Ship? Huh? We've still got a few days left of our vacation. Thought we could spend some quality time together."

She rolled her eyes. "Quality time I can deal with, but not three more days in that SUV. Ron, I want to fly home and sleep in my own bed. The kids want to too. Do you have any idea what it's been like for our son the last few days, basically strapped into that stupid booster seat?" She straddled his lap, wrapping her arms around his waist. "We could even send the kids to stay at Mom and Dad's for a couple nights. Might even be the last chance we have before the baby comes."

"But…"

"Please?" The pout came out full-force. There had been times in the past when he could resist it, but he was actually as tired as she was, and she did have a point. Sleeping in a different bed was fun, but there was nothing quite like being in your own bed. Or the couch in front of the fireplace…

…or the rare treat of the den, with the kids out of the house.

"Sure, KP, but you're gonna owe me."

"How about an advance." She got up and locked the door, smiling broadly as she crossed the room back to his arms.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kim Possible and all related characters © Disney


End file.
